June 2014 Staff Meeting
Note: This prayer service includes reflective intentions, you may wish to use several voices.
Leader:
We begin +in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Loving God,
We thank you for all your gifts to us:
for making us, for saving us in Christ,
for calling us to be Your people.
Gracious God, you have placed in our heart
A marvelous capacity for remembering.
You are a God of history—a history filled with light and darkness. Help us to remember your story and our own, and in the remembering, fill us with gratitude and joy.
Amen
Reader:
A paraphrase from Matthew 11. (paraphrase, Matt. 11: 25 – 30)
Abruptly Jesus broke into prayer: "Thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth. You've concealed your ways from sophisticates and know-it-alls, but spelled them out clearly to ordinary people. Yes, Father, that's the way you like to work."
Jesus resumed talking to the people, but now tenderly. "The Father has given me all these things to do and say. This is a unique Father-Son operation, coming out of Father and Son intimacies and knowledge. No one knows the Son the way the Father does, nor the Father the way the Son does. But I'm not keeping it to myself; I'm ready to go over it line by line with anyone willing to listen.
"Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly."
(The Message)
Leader:
One of the real blessings of working in education is that you can’t carry any files forward, it’s simply not possible to have a file stay in the active drawer for ten years. But along with this blessing comes a bit of responsibility if we are to grow, a challenge to reflect on the year’s experience and envision our desires for the future. So today we will do a bit of personal reflection as we form our prayers of the faithful. Our response will be “Lord, hear us.”
We take a moment to turn our hearts toward the successes of this year.
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| may be a difficult student we were able to help
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| a personal achievement
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| a time when we were proud
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(pause)
We give thanks for these blessings as we pray to the Lord… Lord hear us.
We take a moment to offer to God our struggles and challenges from this year.
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| A student who was a thorn in our side…
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| Perhaps a bit of burn out
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| any disappointment we have
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(pause)
For these struggles we give thanks for our survival and ask for the blessing of insight that we may learn from our experiences, we pray to the Lord…Lord, hear us.
We take a moment and bring to mind those personal stressors which may be weaving through our lives…
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| a relationship that needs healing
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| those times and situations where we know we need a new perspective
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| those times when we have perhaps not been as kind, not as gracious, not as diplomatic as we might have been…
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(pause)
For these times we ask for peace, healing, and renewed faith, we pray to the Lord…Lord hear us.
We take a moment to give thanks for friendships that have been part of this year, for all those who have touched our lives in some real way…for laughter, for tears, for differences and for unity.
(Pause)
For all these gifts of relationship, we pray to the Lord…Lord, hear us.
We give thanks for the summer days that lie ahead…for rest, for fun, for relaxation, or simply for a change in routine.
For these future moments we pray that we will be blessed and that we will find joy and peace, we pray to the Lord…Lord hear us.
Just as we have all these personal intentions, we also have intentions and prayers which gain strength when we share them in community. At this time, I invite you to offer aloud any intention of your heart…
(after intentions have been offered, or a suitable pause to allow people to offer intentions, continue with this closing prayer)
Praise be to you, Gracious God,
For this day, this earth, this life,
For the weave of miracles blessing us
And for your quiet power sustaining us.
We praise you for times of laughter and tears,
Risk and reconciliation,
Reflection and healing,
And for the stubborn presence of your Spirit making it all sacred.
Praise be to you, awesome God,
For the holy mysteries
Of our struggling and wondering,
For our trials and triumphs,
And all that moves us to awe,
To love, to pray, to serve,
Since it is your Spirit that moves us so
And is creating us still;
Through Christ our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
(Ted Loder)
In the +name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen.
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