Shared on Monday December 24, 2007
by Patrick Ioakimedes

God, we speak with you, grateful for your most intimate presence. Thank you that you truly understand each one of us and are able to meet us at the place of our deepest needs. We left the needs of our hearts to you and take time to breathe; reflecting on how each life giving breath is a powerful sign of your life giving purpose inherent in each one of us and in all people. Thank you for this purpose and for providing everything needed to see it to fulfillment. Help us to perceive with hope and patience when we face challenges to our awareness of your purpose. And, help us to be more and more synchronistically attuned to your empowering nourishment at work in us and the world. We pray to you our God. Amen.

God, we thank you for this and all opportunities to dedicate our energy and resources to your uplifting work. Help us as individuals and as a church to be ever-more effective in our abilities to see and take the different opportunities we have to help nourish and heal this world. Guide us in abilities to be supportive of one another, working as a healthy body. We lift our hearts up to your holy purpose. Amen.

Shared on Sunday April 1, 2007
Call to Worship

Welcome. We are here today a blessed and a pilgrim people.

Come into this space. Here is an oasis. Lighten the load of your journey. Shake off the dust of the trail. Review your spiritual map or Global Positioning device. Take a reading. Re-chart your course.

Come and worship.

Invocation

Holy One,

We feel your gaze upon us and sense your ears are open to us.

At times we are bewildered and confused. We hurt. We hurt others. We don’t know what to do or where to go. We see no path for us. We see so many paths we cannot decide which to take.

Help us to be open to you and to be discerning. And on our journey, do not allow us to merely pretend to care for others.

Help us to be genuine and sincere with all we meet. 

Be with us.

Amen.

Shared on Sunday February 11, 2007
written and offered by Loring Fiske-Phillips

Can you hear me now? … Good!

Have you ever tried to use your cell phone in an area with poor reception and had to move around trying to get a better signal? Move closer to a window, move higher on a hill, move around the other side of the building. Well, God’s voice is not limited by obstructions. God doesn’t call us from an unknown place, asking us to move a little closer, climb a little higher, get a little better before we’re worthy of being in God’s presence. God joins us right here, right now, in this place. Then when God calls us to new locations, new people, new ministries, God makes the journey with us. To the prisons … to the Gulf Coast … to Nashville … to Washington , DC … to Mexico … and many other places. God goes with us. And then with no static, no dropped calls, no wrong numbers, God tells us that “No matter who you are or where you are on life's journey, you are welcome here.”

Oh God,

We call on you to help us hear your voice, to help us see your face, to help us feel your presence. We are so thirsty, that we will wander for miles looking for water. In many places in our lives, we feel the dryness of the desert. We are parched for compassion, for righteousness, for justice. When all the time, your living water is right beneath us and raining over us … we can drink so deeply that we will never be thirsty again. Amen.

Shared on Easter Sunday, 2006
written and offered by Lisa Dewey

Loving God, we offer these and many other gifts to you, and it's right and it's good that we do so. These gifts stem from you. Yet there is something more you long for, something that only we can give to you. Father God, Mother God, you make a place at your table and ask us to stay a while. To bask in your love, which is more expansive than the universe, more tender than an orange blossom, enticingly mysterious. On this Easter Sunday, and every day, help us to stay in your presence. Help us to feast in your hall. Amen.

The Gifts Within Us
Art Show Sunday

- Shared in worship, August 4, 2005