Pastoral Prayer
2/7/2016
Broadway Baptist Church
Rev. Chris Caldwell
We have come, O God, to say we love you.
Primarily because you first loved us, but also because
You create us
Sustain us
Shape us
Teach us
And Redeem us.
In you we find our meaning.
In you we find our hope.
In you we find the promise of who we can be.
In you we find affirmation for what we’ve done right,
and forgiveness for what we have done wrong.
We love you, Lord, but we don’t always understand you.
For yesterday, at the ordination of Rev. Chris Liles, we embraced the dawn of his future in ministry,
But tomorrow, at the funeral of Rev. Lloyd Storment, we will mourn the sunset of a faithful life of ministry now passed.
And we confess there are times we wonder why life must have this unbalancing balance.
And we acknowledge that there are some who, upon seeing the bad things that happen in your world, choose not to believe in you.
But that is not the choice we have made.
Even in the presence of loss and of grief, we have come to profess our ongoing faith.
And while some might think us dim for continuing to believe in a perfect God as we live in a robustly imperfect world, we respectfully disagree.
For although our faith in you is, at the end of the day, faith, that does not mean it makes no sense.
We confess we do not understand all things. But we do not profess to be fools, O God.
It may not be an easy truth that life has no meaning without the prospect of death,
Or that winning has no meaning without the prospect of loss,
Or that love has no meaning without the freedom to hate,
But this is the truth we believe.
We thank you for this church, O God, a place where we are not politely asked to check our brains at the door. We know it is not a perfect place, but we are glad we have found it, glad to know there is a place where we can wrestle with our doubts and be honest about our questions, but also a place where we can stand our ground.
And stand we do, with you, humbly yet confidently, on the side of
Hope
Love
Grace
Mercy
Justice
and Peace.
Amen