Sunday’s Congregational Prayer
This morning we will be praying for Tim and Carol Avery. Tim and Carol live in Nairobi, Kenya, where Tim serves in theological publishing and education. Tim is publishing director of a local ministry, Ekklesia Afrika, and he teaches part time in a seminary program. My prayer this morning will be based on 1 John 4:9–11.
Please pray with me.
Our Father, we are so thankful that you have loved us. Though you are righteous and loving, we are born rebellious and unloving. We have not sought you or loved you as we ought, nor have we loved our neighbor as ourselves. And so we confess our sins silently to you.
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We are thankful for manifesting your love for us by sending your Son to give us life. We are thankful for sending him to be the sacrifice for our sins. And we rest in your forgiveness on the basis of his precious blood.
We thank you for your love for the world, to whom we seek to extend love through Tim and Carol Avery. With the Averys, we thank you that Christ shows us who you are. And we thank you for showing your kindness to Tim and Carol by providing additional financial support recently. And for the first graduates of Nairobi Institute of Reformed Theology, we give you thanks; we ask for your blessing on these graduates and their ministries and on the seminary as they continue to train people for ministry. We pray for your grace for Carol and their girls as Tim is carrying a heavier teaching load right now. We pray that you would strengthen Tim to make progress on Ekklesia Afrika’s publishing projects, and for sustaining grace for the whole family to joyfully obey your word in their various duties.
We pray for Stan Guthrie as he seeks to broaden the impact of our church on our city, meeting to pray for outreach and planning events with an outward facing posture. We pray that you would guide Stan and help us as a church to respond to opportunities, formal and informal, to extend love to our neighbors. We pray as well for the Summer Conversations events in July, which will guide us in that. Lord, give us hearts open and tender toward those around us.
We pray in particular for the Naperville Police Department and the Naperville Fire Department and ask for your protection for them and your wisdom to do their jobs well. We pray too that they may come to know your love through Jesus Christ.
We know that you have loved us, and so we accept your invitation to love each other. Help us to that in our conversations after the benediction and throughout the week. We pray this morning for all those among us who are unable to be in the sanctuary to sing and pray and sit under your word, whether because they are traveling or because of health limitations. Lord, we trust in your sovereign care for all of them, and we pray that you would help us to remember them in our prayers.
We pray that as we continue in worship, that you would teach us. Guide Pastor Chris as he preaches, and open our hearts as we sing to you and remind each other of Gospel truth, that our hearts may be enlarged by your love and overflow in love toward others, through Jesus Christ, Amen.