St. Nicolai Notes

Prayer for January 21-27, 2018

Text: Ephesians 4:1-6

Incomparable God, You who are glorious in power, we worship You. We give You all of our praise. We rejoice that You have become our salvation.

Though You have acted in patient and powerful ways among us, we are distressed by the condition of the church of Jesus Christ. Though You have created a perfect foundation for our unity:

                one body … one Spirit … one hope … one Lord … one faith … one baptism

                … one God and Father of all;

we have done almost everything possible to separate ourselves from one another by our arrogance, our stubbornness, our animosity and brutality toward one another.

Through the centuries, Christians have insulted, excluded, banished, tortured and slaughtered each other in the name of Christ. We acknowledge this part of our heritage with great sadness.

In our distress we cry out to You, trusting that You are able to deliver us from our own destruction.

Forgive us for the ways that we have shared the hateful attitudes and actions of our forebears. Forgive us for our assumption of our own superiority over other Christians. Forgive us for our refusal of fellowship with one another. 

By your Spirit, break the chains within us that keep us from building on the foundation of unity that You have created. May your Spirit help us in our weakness and enable us to live as your true children, for the healing of Christ’s church and the renewal of all creation. Amen. 

Note: Yesterday, St. Nicolai UCC joined with a group of Focolare friends for a service of prayer for Chistian unity. We used materials from Graymoor Ecumenical and Interreligious Institute for our worship, so this prayer was not used. It will still be used during this Week of Prayer for Christian Unity: January 18-25.