Lord, please teach us how to pray, and help us to pray now.
God, you are everything; your fierce and gentle love runs through our world, and through us. We need you and we love you: even on the days when we are not so sure you are there, we long for you and we are homesick for your acceptance.
As we face the joy, hardships, excitements and worries of our lives we are so aware of our dependence on each other. We pray that this church would grow real friendships: that we would be able to rely on each other: for acceptance even where we fail, for someone to tell when something exciting happened, for help when it’s our turn to need it, for listening when sorrows come. We thank you for all the varied friendships we have, and we ask you to grow the right friendships where we are lacking at the moment. Make us more open, more generous with our laughter, more tolerant, more interested in each other, than we could reasonably expect to be.
We pray for the people we know who are unwell. We don’t understand why you sometimes heal and sometimes don’t, but we ask for healing with all our hearts.
As the schools get started on a new year, we pray for our young people and their teachers: may they learn and grow in safe places full of joy and fun. We pray for those of our young people who are setting off on careers or university places: please be with them and keep them safe even while those who care for them learn to grant them independence. We pray for the students we welcome here: make us good friends to them, a welcoming and peaceful place.
We pray for our country and our government. We place our hope in a Love that fills the world: may that make us able to imagine a better world, where no-one is forced to sleep rough, no-one is pushed from sofa to sofa, no-one is trapped in a dangerous and unhealthy home. We pray that the legacy of the Grenfell disaster, despite how long it has taken, would be a better society, where our our access to safe housing and decent treatment is not dependent on our social class or that of our parents. We pray for truth, justice and healing in the awful case of people abused and hurt while working at Harrods. May the survivors have peace; we ask for justice for those responsible.
We pray for the elections in the US: may your will be done. May a new consensus form, built on love for neighbour.
We pray for Sudan: we ask that the African Union and UN’s efforts to bring about a ceasefire would succeed, and the 9 million people forced to run away could go home. Please let food get to the millions of people who are starving.
We pray for Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, Iran and the surrounding countries: please prevent more killing and kidnapping – we ask, perhaps with little faith, for safety and fair treatment for all people, and for a lasting and just peace, supported by our government and many others.
God, you are everything; your fierce and gentle love runs through our world and through us. So let us see it! Show your power by answering our prayers for peace, which surely you long for too? Show your love through us: we will walk out of here into busy lives, and quite possibly forget what we are asking, but hear us now: we want to be part of what you are doing. We want to be generous with our time, our compassion, our friendship, our money. To get anywhere near that we need to see your love flow in us and through us.
Amen