A Prayer for the Body of Christ
Jesus, as we see your broken body, we are moved by the sacrifice you have made, to bring reconciliation into our world, through your forgiving love and resurrection power. We praise and thank you for calling us into your Kingdom, and opening the way for us to live this calling in community.
As you touch us in our pain, we are enabled to be open to each other and to find healing, so that, wounded as we are, your mercy may flow through us to the oppressed and broken of this world. You have called us to follow and be your disciples. Convert us from self-centeredness to a life centered in you; From individualism to be yoked in covenant with fellow believers; From suspicion and strife to welcome the stranger as neighbor and to love enemies as sisters and brothers; From claiming ownership and grasping for more, release us so we might live simply and share freely to meet others’ needs; From pursuing worldly power and success, turn us to seek community with the weak and marginalized. For you have “chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the Kingdom.”
To help us follow in your way of love and to bear one another’s burdens, we embrace life in Christian community as God’s calling for us; we commit ourselves to the members and children of First Baptist Church, to live out this calling together unless God would call us elsewhere; we accept the disciplines of daily worship, shared finances, common decision-making, and mutual accountability; according to the grace God gives us under the leading of the Holy Spirit. May this love and witness call others to your Kingdom, Jesus, for you have said, “By this all shall know that you are my disciples—if you have love for one another.” To you, Jesus, and in your power, we offer these commitments. Amen.
(Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals)
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