Prayer
– REACH SA - Synod 2016
Our loving and heavenly Father
We come to you today and we confess
our weakness.
We are often loaded with sorrow,
Perplexed and uncertain at what to
do,
Wracked with doubt,
Consumed by fear,
Hard pressed and discouraged.
We pray for ourselves as we gather
this synod.
Lord
in your mercy hear our prayer
We pray that Christ might be
honoured.
We pray that your name might be
proclaimed in every nook and cranny of our country.
We pray for the rural villages of
our land, forgotten, scorned and often trapped in desperate poverty.
We pray for the urban centres
fiercely pursuing the God’s of money, independence and pleasure.
We pray for our townships with their
apartheid pain and their legacy of political neglect.
We pray for the aspirational
suburbs, wealthy in money, poor in love.
We pray for the gospel to penetrate
every corner of our nation.
We pray for churches to be planted
and ways to be found to fund ministries amongst the poor and marginalised.
We pray for leaders to be raised up
with servant hearts, sacrificial spirits and a missional mindset.
Lord
in your mercy hear our prayer
We pray for our witness as a
denomination that wherever our communities gather we may be communities of love
- deeply in love with you.
May our love gush out of us in
expressions of compassion, grace, generosity and forgiveness to the people
around us.
We pray for our churches to grow in
maturity and in number…
We confess that we are timid in our
prayers and doubting of your promises.
We pray for the energy and
motivation to plant churches and ministries in difficult places.
Lord
in your mercy hear our prayer
We pray for your will to be done in
our lives and in our churches
We pray for your Holy Spirit to give
us such a deep sense of sin that we are revolted at our hearts and constantly
seek your grace.
We pray that you would change us,
grow us to maturity as you make us like your son.
May holiness not be the experience
of the monastery but the desire of our hearts.
We pray for your Holy Spirit to
radically transform us so that it might be gossiped of us that we are like
Christ
Lord
in your mercy hear our prayer
We pray for our Synod.
We pray that we might not be
consumed with the business of keeping the institution running but rather
consumed with the business of advancing and preaching the gospel.
We pray for courage to take risks
for the kingdom.
Compassion to well up in us for the poor
and marginalised.
Love to drive our actions, our words
and our plans.
Benevolence to be our hearts desire as
we consider the orphan and the abandoned.
Unity of mind so that your glory
might be seen in our diversity.
Unity of heart that the divisions of
apartheid might not dog our comradeship.
A fear of hell to grip our hearts
and to motivate our actions.
And the hope of heaven to embolden
us for mission.
Lord
in your mercy hear our prayer
We pray for ourselves today.
We do not crouch at your feet as
slaves.
But exalt in our sonship, our
forgiveness, our justification and our welcome.
We pray that those downhearted might
be encouraged.
Those that are despondent be
revived.
Those that have become lazy be
challenged.
Those that have slipped into the
mundane treadmill of maintenance ministry be re-enthused.
We pray for ideas to be shared and
new ministries to take fruit as a result of our gathering.
But most of all we pray for your
glory alone, for your fame to spread and for your church to show that she is
the bride for whom you died.
In
Jesus Christ name we pray
Amen
