Prayers of the People
PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE – Read during the first and second Sunday of Easter, 2020
Lord even in the midst of the new life we bear witness to during this Easter season, we still feel the tension that all is not yet right in the world. There are bodies still in need of your healing and resurrection. There are relationships in need of your peace and reconciliation
Today, even as we confess that the new creation has already broken in to this time and space, through the ministry and reign of Jesus Christ, we still grieve the things that are in need of your “making new.”
Looking to Jesus Christ as our example, O God, give us a spirit of courage and not of fear, so that we may participate in your healing and reconciling mission in the world by the power of the Holy Spirit. Help us to love our neighbors well, and to become the answer to someone else’s prayer.
Almighty God: we pray for your holy and universal Church…
That we all may be one.
Grant that every member of your body be truly and humbly committed to serving you.
That Your Name may be glorified by all people.
We pray for all ministers, preachers, chaplains, elders, deacons and teachers
That they may be faithful ministers of your Word and Sacraments.
We pray for all who govern and hold authority in the nations of the world, that there would be cooperation on finding a vaccine for the coronavirus, and that testing would be available to all regardless of their ability to pay.
May there be peace, cooperation, and justice upon the earth.
We pray for the first responders, doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and other health care workers…
Keep them safe as they serve on the front lines and risk their lives for the sake of another.
Be with the grocery clerks, the fast food workers, farm laborers, stock persons, truck drivers, FedEx, UPS, and postal workers— those who make sure we have the food we need and who deliver our medicines and things we need to stay healthy…
Lord, we pray you put a hedge of protection around them & their families, and increase their pay and health benefits.
Be with us Lord, as we remain physically distant from one another. Help us to stay healthy—mentally, emotionally, and physically. Motivate us to check in consistently on single folks, those who live alone, or are divorced and/or widowed.
As we shelter in place, help us to know you as our ultimate Shelter; and may we find comfort in remaining connected virtually to our friends, neighbors, and church families through the blessing of technology.
For unhoused persons, the gig workers, the unemployed, the underemployed, and those who have been laid off suddenly with no idea where their next paycheck is coming from.
Help us to find ways to financially assist people who are in need and help us who are anxious about our own employment.
For the school children who count on schools to get the majority of their meals, and for high school and college seniors whose major milestones have been derailed.
We pray your provision and peace upon them. And help us to find ways to provide sustenance and strength for these students.
For people are are hoarding food and other items, we pray.
Lord, help us all to live on less, so that others may have what they need.
For educators and other ministers who have moved the entirety of their instruction and encouagement online…
We pray for their perseverance and creativity.
For the sick, and those whose lives have been upended
For those who have already lost loved ones in this pandemic…
We pray your healing, comfort, and peace.
(brief silence)
When political battles bring out pettiness over issues too important for bickering . . .
(brief silence)
When we are exhausted emotionally, and worried about how this is all going to turn out…
(brief silence)
When we are overwhelmed by loneliness and isolation even though you are always with us . . .
(brief silence)
For the health of the whole world, we pray…
(brief silence)
Lord in your mercy, hear our prayers:
Show us your mercy, O Lord;
And grant us your salvation.
Clothe your ministers with righteousness;
Let your people sing with joy.
Give peace, O Lord, in all the world;
For only in you can we live in safety.
Lord, keep this nation under your care;
And guide us in the way of justice and truth.
Let your way be known upon earth;
Your saving health among all nations.
Let not the needy, O Lord, be forgotten;
Nor the hope of the poor be taken away.
Create in us clean hearts, O God;
And sustain us with your Holy Spirit.
Almighty God, You promised through your Son Jesus Christ to hear us when we pray. At this time we offer earnest petitions for: ______________.
(Fill in the blanks with the things and people who need prayer).
Almighty God, you have given us grace at this time with one accord to make our common supplication to you; and you have promised through your well-beloved Son that when two or three are gathered together in his Name you will be in the midst of them:
Fulfill now, O Lord, our desires and petitions as may be best for us; granting us in this world knowledge of your truth, and in the age to come life everlasting. Amen.