Weekly Prayers for the Church Street Family

Week of June 7, 2023

Rev. Catherine Nance

Good evening friends! I am at Lake Junsaluksa, North Carolina attending the Holston Annual Conference along with Pastor Tim and our lay members. It has been a glorious time of worship and hearing reports about what is happening in our conference. “Recalibrating” is the key word for the conference and forward-looking positivity is the energy in the room. I want to share with you today some of the prayers that have been offered here. You are part of this meeting although you are not here physically. The Holy Spirit always connects us through prayer. – Pastor Catherine

BREAKTHROUGH PRAYER for Holston Conference (You can insert ‘CSUMC’ or ‘our family’ or ‘me’ where the prayer mentions ‘conference.’)

Gracious God, we know that you are with us and you are for us. Together we pray:

• Pour out your spirit upon Holston Conference to renew and revive us in new ways.
• Reveal where the Holy Spirit is leading us as a conference and as your people.
• Break through our barriers, opening new doors of dreams, hopes, and possibilities beyond what we know and can imagine.
• Grant us the courage to walk through the doors you are opening.
• Stir us to seek you first and root us deeply in your will and way.
• Renew, revive, and replant this conference, unleashing new and abundant life.  In Jesus’ name, Amen!

Prayer offered at ordination service (we were reminded by our Bishop that we have ALL been called at our baptism to be in ministry). This was the prayer for those ordained elders:

Give to these your servants the grace and power they need to serve you in this ministry. Make them faithful pastors, patent teachers, and wise counselors. Enable them to serve without reproach, to proclaim the gospel of salvation, to administer the sacraments of the new covenant, and to offer with all your people spiritual sacrifices acceptable to you; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

Below is a portion of the prayer offered at the Memorial Service where we remembered clergy and spouses who have died since last year’s Annual Conference. Many of us who read these Wednesday prayers continue in our grief. 

Months or years may have passed, and still we feel near to them. Our hearts yearn for them. Though bitter grief has softened, duller pain abides; for the place where once they stood is empty now. The links of life are broken, but the links for love and longing cannot break. Their souls are bound up in ours forever. We see them now with the eye of memory, their faults forgiven, their virtues grown larger. So does goodness live, and weakness fade from sight. We remember them with gratitude and bless their names. Their memory is a blessing forever.

Dear God who hears our prayers whether they are whispered by an individual or read in unison in sanctuary, we thank you for the privilege we have in being able to communicate with you. We are thankful you desire to be in communion with us. Stir up in us the acknowledgement of our responsibility in carrying out and living out the prayers we bring before you. In the power of our Risen Savior we pray, Amen.

Weekly Prayers for the Church Street Family

Week of May 31, 2023

Rev. Catherine Nance

Ah … summer! Thank you, God, for the season of summer vacation! Even for those who are not ‘in school,’ there seems to be an energy in the air. A spirit of relaxation, a spirit of exploring, a spirit of anticipating good things! Thank you for this shift in our spiritual atmosphere! 

We also know how quickly high expectations for a season can be dashed by one small thing. So we pray for realistic expectations! We pray for patience and for understanding! May family gatherings be nurturing …. May visits between grandparents and grandchildren be life-giving to both …. Give parents the courage to be honest with their children about budgets and expenses … give us the eyesight to see the beauty and joy in front of us ….  

We put so much pressure on ourselves to make everything ‘picture perfect.’ Keep us mindful of the people around us and that your grace that abounds. You love us as we are; may we extend that same grace to ourselves and others. 

We pray for our Bishop and the District Superintendents this weekend as they prepare for Holston Annual Conference on Sunday. May our clergy and lay members be inspired and renewed as they worship, pray, and fellowship together. We thank you for this church, gracious God. We thank you for the worship that happens on Sunday mornings in the nave and online and how it connects us to each other through the week. 

May the words we speak and sing on Sundays, transform our very beings throughout the week. 

Weekly Prayers for the Church Street Family

Week of May 24, 2023

Rev. Andy Ferguson

Fire-giving God, on the day before long-ago Pentecost, 

You looked down on all you had created: 

     –a universe beyond measure, 

     –a world of sustained beauty and productivity, 

     –creatures great and small. 

You looked down on the followers of your Son: 

     –hiding for fear of their lives, 

     –hopeless in the face of the Cross and his crucifixion, 

     –trying to comprehend the news that the Savior Son again lives — resurrection! 

In the days before Pentecost… 

Most days, just now, it seems that we still live in the days before Pentecost, 

     As if your Spirit Fire did not fall to empower believers like us. 

In countries across the globe, families still hide 

     for fear of war outside their doors. 

     –In Ukraine, Syria and sub-Saharan Africa death fills the air. 

     –Let them breathe freedom again at the falling of the Spirit’s Fire. 

Families up and down Central America live in hopelessness today: 

     –Gangs of criminals make their lives a living hell, 

     –Corrupt governments look the other way in the face of injustice, 

     –Jobs in their home countries are impossible to find and keep. 

We struggle to comprehend how lives are changed now that the Savior Son lives. 

     He was raised on long ago Easter, so why is life still fragile? 

     Why is chatter about the Resurrection reserved for graveyard ceremonies? 

     What does that long-ago Pentecost mean for this world? This time? This day? 

 Fire-giving God, as you sent tongues of fire to fall on disciples long ago, 

     Send fire again to fall on all who still believe. 

Set us on fire for the Savior Son, Jesus the Christ, 

     That we might be part of building a world 

     Of such peace that the warriors will lay down their arms in awe. 

     That those who watch their children suffer will see a new day dawning. 

Give us such an experience of the Spirit falling 

     That we too must run to tell what God has done, 

     That we might live in Pentecost hope as they did. 

We pray in the name of Jesus, who sent the Spirit Fire after him. Amen.