Prayers for the Week of September 14, 2025

Photo credit: Jacob Bentziger, used with permission via Unsplash

Please feel free to join us in the prayers prayed in worship Sunday, September 14, 2025:

Loving God,

in the beginning, you created all that is,

and you love every bit of your creation.

From the very beginning,

we have belonged to you and to each other.

When we find ourselves cut off from community,

you seek us out and bring us back home.

For your great love for us and for the whole world,

we give you thanks and praise.

The world is a mess,

and we've been part of making it so,

so we ask for your help.

This morning, we pray especially for an end to violence.

We pray for all those injured and killed and traumatized in school shootings,

which have become an all-too-regular part of our national life.

We pray this week for those harmed in the shootings

at Evergreen High School in Denver and at Utah Valley University.

For those who grieve the death of loved ones, we pray for comfort and peace.

For those who have been injured and traumatized, we pray for healing.

For our nation divided, help us to realize that we all share a future,

and that each and every one of us is loved by you.

We pray for an end to the violence of war,

for an end to war in Ukraine and in Gaza,

for an end to starvation,

for a return of hostages,

for peace with justice,

for all those caught up in war.

May they be safe. May they be healthy. May they be free.

We pray for an end to the violence of oppressive systems,

and particularly American racism in all its forms.

In all the ways that we are complicit, help us to stop.

And then, listening to those who have been harmed the most,

help us to build a world that protects the dignity of every person

and enables all people to live free and thrive.

We pray for the deep needs of our ordinary lives.

For those who are hungry, we pray for food enough and more.

For those who are ailing in body or spirit, healing.

For those who are far from home, safe shelter.

For those who mourn, comfort.

For those who are lonely, companionship.

Teach us what more we should pray.

Show us how to be more loving, more just, more free.

Help us extend to each other the broad and expansive welcome and love

that you have extended to us.

Together in community with everyone who has ever called on you in every time and place, we now pray 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.