Prayers for the Week of August 24, 2025

Please feel free to join us in the prayers prayed in worship Sunday, August 24, 2025:

Loving God, in the beginning,

you created all that is,

and then you stood back and beheld what you had made,

and you saw that it was good,

and you said that it was good.

You have created us to be part of your good creation;

you see us – and you love us – every one of us.

And so we join our voices,

to the mighty chorus that the morning stars began,

and we give you thanks and praise.

As we move into this week,

help our ways be your ways.

We know the deep hurt in the world,

we see it all around, and we know it in our bones,

help us join your ways of healing.

In an isolating age, help us open to new ways of welcome.

Wherever there is war, help us work for peace.

We pray particularly for the people of Ukraine

and the people of Gaza.

We pray for a return of hostages.

Move the world to end the starvation of children in Gaza.

Restore access to the basic necessities of life –

food, water, medical care, freedom from wanton violence –

move the world to establish peace with justice.

We pray freedom for every place there is oppression.

We pray for an end to systems of oppression –

particularly systems of American racism.

We pray that you will help us bring truth

where the powers try to lie about the realities of those systems,

blunt and prevent their whitewashing of history.

Help us see and say plainly the harm down through the centuries,

and our own complicity,

so that we might stop.

Help us build a better world with you.

We pray for the healing of creation –

healing for the harm we have caused.

Teach us mending ways – ways to mend what we can,

even as we learn to live in the new realities we have put into motion.

We pray healing for all who are ailing, in body, in spirit.

For those who are hungry, food enough and more.

For those who are lonely, companionship and community.

For those who are confused, clarity and meaning.

For those who are migrating and for refugees, safe shelter.

Draw us into community as expansive as your love for the world,

and let us live our lives from there,

for you and for all you love – which is everything and everybody.

Trusting in your love for us in Jesus Christ,

we join our voices with every voice that has ever called on you,

praying the prayer that Jesus taught saying:

Our Father/Mother, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever. Amen.