In this week as I walk your path and sometimes stumble, God, make your way clear. In our communities where we have sometimes remained silent, God, open our lips to speak for justice. In this world where there is much hurt, hurt that we sometimes cause, God, make us agents of healing. In this time when there is much sorrow and grief, God, send us out to be ambassadors of hope and joy. In these moments of silence, God, hear our prayers. Let us surrender all that to the One who loves us beyond measure, the One who heals us, the One who makes us whole.
Prayer I have failed. I have turned away. Fix me, heal me, break-and-remake-me, hold me, comfort me, nurture me, revive me, resuscitate me, bring me back from death. I give you the last word, O God.
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Words of Assurance My friends, God is not done with us, not by a long shot. You are more beloved than you can ever know, and God is working in you and in the world beyond our wildest imagining. The beginning of all that is forgiveness. So know that you are indeed forgiven, and be at peace. Let us come before our God with that which lies heavily in our hearts. That just as light warms and energizes us, So darkness calms us and gives us rest. That there are those who still live in shadows of fear and grief That we are called to be with them in the dark, and to bring light.
We thank you for day and night, for darkness and light, for the strife and the joy, and for making us whole. An unburdening, a letting go, Truth telling. To whom do we confess? What do we confess this day? We confess the wrong we have done and the hurt we have caused. We confess the good we have not done, and the sin we have not claimed. We confess that we live more like ourselves and less like Christ. Let us now make our silent confession. Holy God, at times we have delusions of grandeur, and we forgot to see what is small — the falling leaf that holds the beauty of creation; the kind word that is a testament to grace; the child who is vital not only for the future but for the present.
Help us to remember our place in this world you made, to give thanks for things great and small, to be humble and hopeful. And hear us now as in silence we open our heart to you. And we are not only forgiven, we are also freed. Let us greet with world as people made new in Christ. And we know that fear stops us in our tracks, hinders our action, and gives excuse for not doing what you call us to do and what you empower us to do. So we pray that you will give us courage, O God. Give us strong hearts and open hands, that we might set aside our fear, and walk confidently into this world you have made.
And we know that we do not do your will. With clenched hands, we can neither give nor receive. With eyes tight shut, we cannot see pain or beauty. With feet of clay, we cannot dance in joy or run to help. We ask for your help and your power to change. Open our hands and eyes, move our feet, toward grace and hope and trust in You. In Jesus Christ we are forgiven. Our hope in Christ tells us a different thing, that when we confess we open up the way to mercy and forgiveness.
Trusting in that hope, let us make our confession, first in silent prayer. We flit from cause to cause; We are easily distracted by the next important thing; We think about yesterday and tomorrow but not today. Help us to be mindful of the grace and beauty that surround us right now.
Help us commit to the need that is before us right now. Help us to think deeply, and respond generously, as you have loved us deeply and forgiven us generously. Do they not come from your craving that are at ward within you? Untie the knots of envy and disappointment that dwell in our hearts. Loosen our grasp on worldly things, that we might open our hands to holy things. Turn us around to You, and make us whole, we pray. For all those ways we hurt you by hurting each other and ourselves, forgive us. Turn us around to you; heal us, and make us whole, we pray. What we see there may be beautiful or ugly.
In this time of quiet, may we look within, and offer God the wholeness and truth of our lives. Forgive us when we look at screens rather than sunsets; forgive us when we read about a crisis and do not respond. Forgive us for thinking that we are the source of power and beauty and life. Turn us around, and give us new eyes to see; eyes to see hope in the clouds, eyes to see life in the blade of grass, to see power in the water and stone. This we pray in the name of Jesus, the beautiful Savior.
We follow and we falter; we try and we give up.
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The good we do seems to fall flat, and the wrong we do gets magnified. For all our failings, for all our missteps, You do not give up on us. Stay with, and when we lose our way, turn us around to You. This we pray in the name of Jesus. Take what is broken and mend it; take what is wrong and right it; take what is destructive and disable it; take what is useless and make it useful. Heal our sin, we pray. For those times when we have not spoken up; for those times when we have not acted; for those times when we have not responded: Give us courage to name what is wrong when we see it.
Give us confidence to do what is hard. Give us grace to reach out when that is frightening or uncomfortable. The following is not so much a prayer of confession, but excerpted from an essay on the nature of confession. Many Rivers Press, To confess is to free oneself, not only by admitting a sin or an omission but to profess a deeper allegiance, a greater dedication to something beyond the mere threat of immediate punishment or the desolation of being shunned.
To confess is to declare oneself ready for a more courageous road, one in which a previously defended identity might not only be shorn away, but be seen to be irrelevant, a distraction, a working delusion that kept us busy over the years and held us unaccountable to the real question. We know when we have acted against your rule of love.
We know when we have neglected to do something that would help another person or help the world. We know that we sin. We also know that you love us, and forgive us, and call us to forgive others. So help us in all of this, so that we truly are your partners in service and mission. And that means that God forgives, again and again. Forgive us, and make us whole. We would be different — less judging, less selfish, less greedy; more hopeful, more graceful, more trusting.
We would be different, if you would come into our hearts and cleanse them; if you would open our hands and direct them; if you would move our minds and feet to follow you. We will be different, if you will change us, and remake us, again, in your image. Thanks be to God for this gift! This week our children are leading in worship, and the liturgy was written with younger voices in mind. God knows that, and wants to help us make things right. We start by telling God the whole truth. Let us now pray to God about those things. Dear God, sometimes I mess up. Sometimes I hurt someone else because I am angry or mean.
Dear God, sometimes I try hard to be kind and thoughtful. Help me to live that way. Dear God, thank you for the gift of forgiveness. The call to confess is the call to lay down the burden you may carry, the burden of guilt, of judgement, of knowing you hurt another. We lay that burden down at the feet of the One who calls all of us to a life of forgiveness and repentance.
Trusting in the mercy and love of our God, let us pray, first in silence. Forgive us for the wrong we know we have done: Our neglect of the vulnerable; our misuse of your gifts; our hoarding of things we are called to share. Forgives us for the good we have failed to do: Offering grace to the imperfect; forgiving those who have hurt us; seeing the good that surrounds us.
Turn us away from that which harms, and turn us to you, the One who heals. To be participate in the prayer of confession is to admit the truth that all is not right, and that we need God to make it right. We are not right with you or with each other. Anger and fear and disappointment rest uneasily in our hearts. It is hard to trust and it is even harder to forgive. Help us to turn to you to find the strength we need. Help us to look to the example of Jesus to see how to love. Help us look deep within ourselves for our own fault.
We pray for your forgiveness, and we pray to be forgiven. And we make it worse. And we try to fix it. And we cause it — sometimes. Take away the source of the pain, we pray: The source that is evil, The source that is hatred, The source that is pride, The source that is ignorance, The source that is apathy. Forgive us our part in the pain of the world. Heal us, heal all, and make us whole. To confess to God is to await — to await that word of grace, of forgiveness, of hope.
We admit we make You too small. We admit we make You manageable. Forgive our short-sightedness, our self-limitedness, and our stubbornness. Enlarge our hearts, souls, and minds so that we let go of the need to define You so that we can embrace the joy of letting You be the One who loves.
In Christ we pray, Amen. In Jesus Christ, we are forgiven, reconciled, loved, and changed. In admitting the truth of our loves to our loving Creator, we open ourselves to the experience of grace and healing. Trusting in that divine love, let us pray, first in silence. It is hard to see tragedy and suffering. It is hard to admit whatever responsibility we might have in the plagues of the world. It is hard to work for the good when the good seems so far off. So help us, dear Lord.
Give us courage to see clearly. Give us strength to do our part. Give us grace to forgive others and ourselves. And give us faith to follow you. This is our prayer, offered in the name of Christ. Jesus calls us follow him, and he will not lead us astray. His path is one of forgiveness and renewal.
Know that you are forgiven, and so you are ready to go out and serve. Holy God, remind us that we are loved when we find ourselves unlovable. Remind us that there is hope when all we see around us makes us despair. Remind us that you sent the Prince of Peace when war and violence overwhelm. Remind us that you are the merciful judge when injustice seems to prevail. Remind us that you give us all we need to do your work in the world.
Remind us that you give us grace so that we can be your people. We confess our doubt, and trust in your love. Holy God, we admit to You that all is not right — in our hearts and in our world,. Turn us around so that we look at the possibility, at hope, at promise, at grace, at healing, at love. Holy God, we confess that we are busy with many preparations. We are busy with parties, with feasts, with giving. We are busy cleaning house and wrapping presents. We are busy with the stuff of the holiday. And we confess that our busyness may be misplaced, that we spend more time preparing for things than preparing for You.
Draw us back to the center which is You. Remind us that our hearts and souls have work to do, too. Enable us to let go of that which does not matter, and to see what does matter. In Christ, God brought us back to our true home, to hope, to love, and to life. Heal the wounds we carry in us, and heal the wounds we have created in others.
Make us strong in the broken places, that we will know of what we speak when we offer mercy and hope. Forgive us, and enable us to forgive in that same way. God of love and mystery, make us whole, through your Son Jesus Christ, we pray. Loving Mystery, we have tried and succeeded, and we have tried and failed. Sometimes we are terribly sorry, and sometimes we are terribly smug. We can be vigilant about the wrong things, and oblivious to the right things. We ask for your help to become the people you created us to be. We ask for your forgiveness for the harm we have caused.
We ask for your love so that we will love in return. All these things we say in the strong name of Jesus. O God, when we look at you, and then look at ourselves, we realize how tiny we are. But we are not so small that our actions are inconsequential. Sometimes a word of thanks brings warmth to a cold heart. Sometimes a choice to forgive opens up a new future for two people. Sometimes a thoughtless gesture slashes the heart.
Sometimes our inaction leaves the world in its sorry state. We ask for your help. We ask that some of your greatness infuse our smallness. Holy God, we carry the burdens of words said we wish we had not said; of acts done in anger or pride that we wish we could undo. We hold grudges for a long time, and we do not reconciliation with those from whom we are estranged. Forgive those words and deeds and inactions that cause you and others sorrow. Restore us, renew us, and give us the strength, courage, and love we need to be your gracious people.
All is not well, Holy God. Your children die of preventable diseases while we pop an aspirin for the slightest ache. Your children live in abject poverty, while others bask in palaces of gold. All is not well. We tear each other down. We abuse your gift of the earth. We fill our minds with frivolous things, and allow our hearts to stay blank. All is not well, so forgive us for our part in the misery of the world. Forgive us for the ways in which we turn from you. Heal your world, and heal us, that we might go out and be people of salvation, not of destruction.
Through Christ, who makes all things new, who makes all things well, we pray. There is pain and there is sorrow, there are broken relationships and broken hearts. We have caused pain. We have broken the relationship. Sometimes we are simply a part of them — we are the ones who suffer, we are the ones who are broken. So we ask for your forgiveness, and we ask for your healing.
Beyond that, we ask that you would help us turn from our former selves to the persons you have created us to be, full of mercy and grace and love. Through Christ, who is our example, we pray. Great God of all creation, who are we that you are mindful of us? You count the hairs on our heads, and call us each by name. You give us your wisdom and you uphold us by your Spirit. You tend to us and care for us, and we do not understand why. We cannot grasp your love for us, O God, for it is unlike us to be that loving and forgiving.
We become enmeshed by our own needs and wants and desires and we fail to see beyond anything but our own little circles. Turn us around, O God. Help us to see as you see, and to reach out as you reach out.
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Remind us once again of the sacredness of our ordinary, day-to-day lives. By your Spirit, teach us to live truly as beings little lower than angels. In your mercy, O God, forgive who we are and bless who we will be. You send prophets and saviors to help us, to save us, to raise us, and our response is to question You. Forgive us not for our doubts, but for our limited sight.
Open wide before us the vista of your grace, and the expanse of your love, and the wonder of your healing power. Sisters and brothers in Christ, hear the Good News: At some time each one of us has been lost in many different ways. But now we are indeed found, and not simply found, but rejoiced over, and cherished, and beloved. Your sins are forgiven; you have come home. Gracious and merciful God, you know us. You know our hearts, you know our thoughts, you know our actions. You know our successes and our failures, that which commends us and that which condemns us.
We know ourselves, too; we know the good we have done, and we know how we have fallen short. We would know you better, so that the burden of sin would not weigh us down. We would know you better, so that the freedom of your mercy would enable us to fly. Forgive our sins, and restore us to wholeness, we pray. Life is full — full of good things and full of hard things. Each of us works to cope with the easy and with the sad, and sometimes as we try to manage all that life hands us, we ignore the pain of someone else, the struggle of another.
God calls to see it all, and to help when we can. Forgive us when we ignore your children who cry out in distress. Forgive us when we choose not to see those who frighten us, or those who bother us, or those who remind us too much of ourselves.
Forgive us when we put rules ahead of people, and choose legality over kindness and judgment that lacks mercy. Enable us to see as you see, the wide vistas open to the possibility of compassion and grace. O God, hear our prayer. In the midst of separation, God longs for reconciliation, walking toward us, and inviting us to walk toward our God.
In silent prayer and in unison prayer, let us walk toward God seeking grace. And we will wander again, but for the moment, we are safe and forgiven. And so we thank you. We come before God in silence and in prayer, to open our hearts to our Creator, the one who heals, loves, and forgives. Merciful God, hear our prayer. When we are courageous, or down and out, or too weary to do anything else, we admit the truth of our lives.
We do not add beauty to the world. We do not offer kindness as often as we might. We pay lip service to the cries of others, and sit idly by until the sound fades. We ask for your mercy and grace, and we ask for your help, to give us courage and strength to live as you would have us live. In Christ, who gave us those qualities and who taught us all we need to know, we pray. Dear Child of God, in our world it is often hard to remember that God loves you just as you are. God loves you not because you are good. God loves you, period. God loves us not because we are loveable.
No, we are loveable precisely because God loves us. We would rather pursue intellectual arguments than live the gospel. We would rather debate our equals than defend the vulnerable. We prefer to think about you instead of getting to know you. So help us, God. Help us to discern what does matter to you and to the vulnerable you call us to. Help us to open up our hearts, wide in love and grace, and so be living examples of your good news.
Merciful and loving God: When we are oblivious, open our eyes. When we are harsh, gentle our spirit. When we are apathetic, show us your suffering children. When we demean ourselves, whisper that we are created in your image. When we lose all hope, show us the empty tomb. So shape us, and turn us around, that we will live with blessing and grace and light. Maybe our small errors add up; or maybe there is no degree to sin, that one is as hurtful as another. Help us not to dwell on vocabulary. Help us not to focus on what sin means but to acknowledge that we do things that hurt other people, and the creation, and ourselves, and you.
Come into our hearts, then, and give us strength and courage to be less hurtful and more loving. These things we pray in the name of Jesus, who showed us how this is done. Jesus came not to condemn us, but to love us and save us and show us the way. Know that we are forgiven, and be at peace. On this new day, let us come to God in prayer. That distance is sometimes tragedy, when we feel abandoned. That distance is sometimes a force of evil, when something conspires against us. That distance is sometimes our foolish choices, or our selfish acts, or the hurt we cause another.
We seek your forgiveness and we seek reconciliation with you and each other.
Anguished Declaration of Love
So assure us of your closeness, and your power, and your mercy, and your ability to change our lives for the good. In the season of Lent, as we prepare to receive the Easter gift of resurrection, we are invited on a journey. We are invited to walk a path of introspection and reflection, acknowledging both the shadows and light of our lives. Trusting in the grace of God, and before one another, let us admit the shadows and light, first in silent prayer. How impossible it seems that we could ever hide anything from you, or even try to hide something; but we do.
Sometimes we pretend to be better than we are. We do thing we know will hurt others and act as though we are blameless. We are complicit, and we are guilty, and we are broken. So we ask for your forgiveness, because you love us more than we can imagine, and you can make us whole beyond our wildest dreams. This we ask in the name of Jesus, who came to show us the way. Gracious Creator, we seek your blessing, knowing that we have not earned it. In our faults, we seek your blessing. In our sins, we seek your forgiveness. In our weakness, we seek your strength.
In our sorrow, we seek your consolation. In our trials, we seek your justice. In our pain, we seek your peace. Hear our prayers, O God, and make our hearts new. Beth — I was searching for some prayers of confession to use during communion services and came across your site. Thank you for sharing them with the world. I will tweak some a bit to fit and use them with our congregation if I may. Please tweak and use them and grace and peace to you! Beth, I am pastor of a Covenant Church. Preaching on Psalm 51 this week and looking for resources. So glad I found your site!
I have copied and saved this entire blog post for use in my ministry, with your permission. Since you already granted it to Justin, I feel safe in assuming. Blessings on your ministry. I have a congregation with an education that spans from barely made it out of a village school in Africa to PhDs, and this liturgy meets everyone. I just discovered your site with your thoughtfully written prayers.
I would like to use some in an upcoming service. Shall I site your writings at in apportion of our bulletin? Shall I site your writings at in a portion of our bulletin? Ditto to everything said above. Your prayers are wonderful and heart felt, and thank you so much for being so generous and inviting in encouraging us to use them. I sense that your heart fills with joy in this opportunity to share this offering of prayers. God bless you in this ministry. I am recently retired and currently involved in Pulpit Supply, especially among the Native American churches of Arizona. I am searching for prayers for an upcoming prayer vigil with the theme on Confession and Repentance.
As we remember the cleansing water of baptism, O God, we praise you and give you thanks that you forgive us yet again. Grant us now, we pray, the grace to die daily to sin, and to rise daily to new life in Christ, who lives and reigns with you, and in whose strong name we pray. If we have been united with Christ in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. So you must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus Rom. Your Our sins are forgiven. Both the call to confession and the assurance following it should, in effect, be assurances of the grace of God.
It is not our task to convince people of their sinfulness but to proclaim the mighty works of God—especially in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Our goal is that people will come to faith, and through the lens of that faith, see their own inadequacy and be brought to repentance and confession. Perhaps the most striking is Romans 5: Much more surely, now that we have been justified by his blood [another opportunity to lift the water], will we be saved through him. Let me summarize a bit. Most often this confession of sin is a specific penitential segment early in the worship service.
However, having such a segment in our worship is not one of the primary requirements of Reformed worship. Rather, as we have seen, a spirit of repentance, humility, and confession should pervade our entire worship service. So it is appropriate that from time to time, perhaps during Lent, the specifically penitential segment follow the sermon. And, since our praise and confession are complementary, there may be times in the year, such as in the Easter season, that the opening prayer of adoration may contain the element of the confession of our unworthiness. The rhythm of the Christian year will show itself in our prayers, with a stronger sense of praise during the festival seasons and a stronger sense of repentance during the preparation seasons.
But both emphases should always be present, even though their proportions may vary. And, as Calvin says, it may be that when we are the most overcome by the sense of our own sinfulness, when our sins are beyond counting, that we give the greatest praise to God. Indeed, there is a point at which it is impossible even to think about being able to enumerate all our sins.
The topical index of denominational hymnals will provide many resources for singing rather than speaking a prayer of confession. Many contemporary collections also include good possibilities. Here are several contemporary songs, some that function well as calls to confession, some as prayers of confession, some as assurances of pardon, some as all three. A brief spoken introduction to the focus of the song will help the congregation understand the relationship among those different elements of confession. Praise Chorus Book 3 Marantha! The Scripture text was Luke 7: The prayers followed the sermon and prayer of application.
Everyone was encouraged to have both their worship folder and their hymnal ready, so the prayers could follow without interruption The prayers of confession were followed immediately by the intercessory prayers of the people. The organ introduction was very quiet, beginning with melody only; the singing was subdued; stanza 2 was sung unaccompanied. Your faith has saved you. I teach regularly at the seminary. I have students living in my house.
I am writing three books. Countless people write to me. When I start each day, therefore, I make it a point to spend an hour in prayer with God.
Prayer of Confession – Hold Fast to What Is Good…
But if I have a particularly busy day, and am more rushed than usual, I make it a point to spend two hours with God before I start the day. God, When I look at the sky, I can tell what You have been doing. The sun, the moon, and the stars. I can hear what You are saying when I see what You do. One church in a small New York town decided to canvass its community by prayer. There were no brochures, newsletters, or tracts; just prayer. No one pressed a doorbell or made a phone call.
The church members simply prayed earnestly. Prayer had gained access. Vander Griend, Houses of Prayer: Donate to Reformed Worship. Log into the Digital Library here.