Intercession Prayer For Sunday 9th February 2014

God above, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hears every prayer. We offer you this prayer for Your world, Your Church and for ourselves. As we know you you hear it, we know too you will answer; not when or how we expect or intend but in Your wisdom, in the time and in the way You know we need.

When Paul visited the young church in Corinth, he did not speak “in lofty words” but plainly so that everyone might understand. Let us learn from his example to speak clearly and simply so that what we say might be understood and let us remember that, as a lamp that is covered is useless, so too are words not understood or worse mis-understood or spoken in anger, that might create disunity and conflict.We pray that you show us how to use words wisely, that Your Word is our word and that we may find wisdom by better understanding Your Word.

In the rain and storms of recent weeks, some of us have been relatively unaffected, for which we give you thanks Lord. Others have not been so blessed and we pray for everyone affected by flooding, who have had to leave homes that have been damaged or destroyed. We pray for the farmers and farmland that will be useless to grow crops or rear animals, because the land is underwater and will be waterlogged for many months.

Heavenly Father we pray for the Winter Olympic Games, now underway. We ask that the competitors take part in a spirit of friendship. As we watch them on television, and cheer on our sportsmen and sportswomen, let us be reminded by Paul that the glory of the medals will fade but your glory is eternal.

Lord of Peace and Justice, we thank you for the progress and ceasefire in Syria that is allowing some relief to the city of Homs. We pray that this small step, letting the old, young and vulnerable be evacuated, will lead to greater progress to peace in that troubled nation.

Father God, speak peace into hearts where peoples meet,
justice where ideas and ideals clash,
mercy where power reigns,
healing where minds and bodies hurt
and unity where there is division.

Whilst we remember the children in places of conflict, like Syria, or in regions of disaster, we pray too for our own local children. For the social services and Youth workers, for the volunteers who care in other ways for them. We pray especially today for children from broken homes who need foster carers and that more families will come forward to offer that care.

Lord Jesus Christ, we bring to you all the children of your world,
their openness and friendliness,
enquiry and creativity.
We ask that you forgive our readiness to classify and divide them;
to demand their conformity.
Help us to encourage and understand them,
that their spirits may be lifted for your world’s sake.

Living God, source of light and life, we bring to you all those know or unknown to us who need your healing, comfort and strength as they suffer illness or brokenness of body or mind.

Jesus our healer,
we place in your gentle care all who are sick.
Ease their pain and heal their damage.
Fill them with your warmth and love
now and always.

Merciful Father,
accept our prayer for the sake of your son,
our saviour, Jesus Christ.
Amen.

Written with inspiration from Angela Ashwin’s,
The Book Of A Thousand Prayers.

Download this prayer in .pdf to print here

Intercession Prayer For Sunday 6th October 2013

The 19th Sunday of Trinity

Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who freely gives us His spirit of wisdom and grace, we say to you our prayer our thanks, of praise and of our concerns for ourselves, for Your Church and for Your world given into our stewardship.

 This morning, Your sun rose over this planet anew. May the new day that the sun brings shine with your light to be a beacon for all people showing them the way to you, led by the example of Your Son, Jesus Christ and guided by Your Holy Spirit.

With each dawn, You give us a new opportunity to become closer to You Father, yet so often we find ourselves distracted by other things. We do not trust you as we should, we do not thank you as we should for your gifts, especially your greatest gift, the grace of Your Son, through whom we are forgiven and at the feet of whom we may lay our troubles:

Father above,
Thank you for this morning
Thank You for this day
Thank you that I with all my trouble to You may come. 

You are ushering in another day
untouched and freshly new,
so here we are to ask You God
if You’ll renew us too?

Paul reminded Timothy to “not be ashamed to testify about our Lord”.  Let each of us take Paul’s message to heart as we, each in our own way, spread the gospel in love and faith, not just in duty.

As we approach harvest time, we pray for everyone who will be hungry because their crops have failed. We pray for places where that failure is because of weather, flooding or drought, because of mismanagement or dishonesty, or because of violence and war, where a crop has not failed but has been destroyed.

We remember those whose harvest will be only that gleaned by scavenging scraps, or begging from others to feed themselves and their families.

Our Father in heaven, we pray for the refugees fleeing war or poverty, persecution and terrorism. This week we pray especially for the refugees from, Somalia and Eritrea, who died when their boat sank, because of a fire close to Lampedusa off the coast of Italy and we pray for families they left behind. Father we ask for Your mercy upon the souls of the dead and Your comfort, strength and healing their families and the survivors of the disaster.

We thank You for the work of the rescuers, for the strength you gave to each one of them to deal with the horrors of recovering the bodies, especially of the children. We pray that in the places where these and people like them are so desperate as to risk their lives to escape, You will bring peace, stability and prosperity.

God and Father, we remember with gratitude St. Francis of Assisi, whose feast day was this week (4th October) and of whom the present Pope Francis is his namesake. We thank You for St. Francis humanity and the help and care he gave to the poor and impoverished. May we learn from his example and in this time of concern for the environment, remember his teaching, that it is the ‘duty of all creatures to praise God and the duty of mankind to protect and enjoy nature as both the stewards of God’s creation and as creatures ourselves’.

Healing and comforting Father, we bring to you those who we know that need the restoration only you can give for broken bodies, broken minds and broken spirit. There are many who need your gentle touch and you know them all. We bring to you now in prayer those whom we know in our families, in our; our friends and acquaintances and our families and in a few moments of quiet and stillness within our hearts, we tell you our own cares and concerns.

Spirit of wisdom and grace, who knows us all better than we know ourselves

Forgive the many errors,
that we made yesterday,
and let us try again dear God,
to walk closer in Thy Way. 

But Father, we are well aware
we can’t make it on our own.
So take our hands and join them tight
for we can’t walk alone.

Merciful Father, accept this prayer for the sake of Your Son, our Saviour, Lord Jesus Christ.

Amen.

Intercession Prayer For Sunday 12th May 2013

Heavenly Father, who promised through your Son Jesus Christ to hear our prayer; we offer this prayer in thanks and praise and concern for our world, whether it is the world we know outside our own front doors or the world we don’t see, that is far away.

On this Sunday after Ascension, whilst we await the coming of Your Holy Spirit at Pentecost, we give thanks for the time spent among your people of your greatest gift to us, Your Son Jesus Christ. On Ascension day, He left the physical world You gave us but he lives on in our hearts and in the hearts of all who believe and choose to accept him as their Lord and Saviour. May His light shine still on the world through each of us and as He prayed for all believers, in today’s reading, so we also pray now for all believers and for the doubters and unbelievers, that they may in time find You, our Lord.

Father we ask Your blessing on all who will help during Christian Aid week . We give thanks for each of the volunteers who will be giving their time, to deliver and collect the envelopes. We pray that all who receive an envelope will be generous that wisdom is given by Your Holy Spirit so that those who distribute the money collected, will do so wisely.

We ask and trust that Your peace will be brought to the places we hear about in the news and the places we do not. We pray especially for Syria and ask You to give hope to the afraid, wisdom to those who strive to find a peaceful solution, conscience to those in command, and a sense of mercy to the soldiers and militias.

God of peace, in whom is found calm and harmony, heal the divisions that divide one from another, man from man, country from country, and bring all into unity of love in You, through Your Son.

We give thanks for the news of a slowing of the decline of the Church, with some places experiencing growth and rising attendance. We pray that Your plan for us will show us how to grow both in attendance and in depth of faith. May our faith in Your Son Jesus Christ, show each of us in our own way, and together as Jesus’ collective body how we can best spread Your Gospel.

God of the living word,
give us the gift of faith to hear your message,
the wisdom to understand it,
the will to live by it
and the courage to spread it.

As the time of exams approaches for our young men and women, we pray that they will achieve the grades they need for the future they seek, with the guidance of Your Holy Spirit. We thank You for the dedication, knowledge and experience of all their teachers whether professional and formal, or voluntary and informal.

Healing and redeeming Father, we name before you those for whom we give thanks for Your healing touch and those we know in need of it. And in a few moments of quiet, we give You in our hearts our own thanks, concerns, and praises.

God of work and rest and pleasure,
grant that what we do this week may be for us an offering not a burden;
and for those we serve may it be the help they need.

Merciful Father,
Accept this prayer for the sake of Your son,
our Saviour,
Jesus Christ.
Amen.

Anyone is welcome to add their own prayer in comments or to make a request for prayer.