Partnership Sunday

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From Week of Prayer for Christian Unity: Reconciliation
Confession
Go-between God, bridge-builder, community-maker: You call us, your Church, to be a laboratory of peace: accept our sorrow for the hostilities we harbour and the walls we continue to build. You call us, your Church, to be a parable of your kingdom: accept our sorrow for telling a very different story: a story of attachment to worldly values. You call us, your Church, to be a sign of contradiction: accept our sorrow for being content with the way things are and fearful of speaking the prophetic word. You call us, your Church, to be a place of welcome and warmth: accept our sorrow for sour faces, cold hands, judgemental attitudes and lack of compassion. You call us, your Church, to be a community of praise: accept our sorrow for allowing anxiety about human failures to muzzle confidence in your power to transform the world.
INTERCESSION
God of peace, you have shown us that your will for the world is that all people should live in justice and peace. You have given us a vision of hope where all humanity lives in that wholeness of life for which we have been created. We pray for your world, torn apart by conflict and fear: nations divided one from another by suspicion, aggression, and greed, nations divided within themselves by injustice, oppression, and powerlessness. We pray especially for ... You have called your Church to be a sign of hope in a world without hope, a healing community in a broken world, a people of peace in a world at war with itself. Forgive our failures of the past and create in us a vision of unity and hope, of love and sharing, that we might indeed be a light for the nations; through Jesus Christ our peace.
COMMITMENT
Lord God, we thank you for calling us into the company of those who trust in Christ and seek to obey his will. May your Spirit guide and strengthen us in mission and service to your world; for we are strangers no longer but pilgrims together on the way to your kingdom.
Intercession - rework as a Call to Worship?
Glory to you, Almighty God! You spoke, and light came out of darkness, order rose from confusion. You breathed into the dust of the earth and we were formed in your image. You looked on the work of your hands, and declared that it was all good. And still you speak, breathe life and look for us: we praise you. Glory to you, Jesus Christ! You met us as a refugee, a threatened child, the word made flesh, born in a forgotten place. You called us by name, to leave what was comfortable, to be your disciples, companions and friends. You saved us by kneeling at our feet, stretching your arms wide to take away our sins, walking through death to life again. And still you meet, call and save us: we praise you. Glory to you, Holy Spirit! You brooded over chaos, mothering and shaping God’s new creation. You inspired prophets and evangelists to discover the right word for the right season. You liberated the early church for mission, claiming all of life for the Lord of all. And still you brood over, inspire and liberate us: we praise you.
2 Corinthians 5:17-21 NRSVue
So if anyone is in Christ, there[c] is a new creation: everything old has passed away; look, new things have come into being! 18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; 19 that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself,[e] not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. 20 So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ: be reconciled to God. 21 For our sake God made the one who knew no sin to be sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

RESPONSE TO THE WORD

We are called to be a worshipping community, offering all to God in prayer. We are called to be a missionary community, making known the redeeming love of God. We are called to be a sacrificial community, generously giving from all that God has given us. We are called to be an inclusive community, sharing the hospitality of God’s Kingdom with all. We are called to be a prophetic community, challenging powers that oppress and corrupt As a Gospel people, let us covenant together before God and each other:

WE COVENANT

Creating and redeeming God, we give you thanks and praise. Your covenant of grace was made for our salvation in Jesus Christ our Lord. We come this day to covenant with you and with our companions in discipleship: to watch over each other and to walk together before you in ways known and still to be made known. Pour down your Spirit on us. Help us so to walk in your ways that the promises we make this day, and the life that we live together, may become an offering of love, our duty and delight, truly glorifying to you, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.
This day, we give ourselves again to the Lord and to each other, to be bound together in fellowship. and to work together in the unity of the Spirit for the sake of God’s mission. The following may be named, as appropriate In our congregation, in local and global partnerships, in our association and in Your Church, historic and global, we commit all that we have and all that we are to fulfil God’s purposes of love.

WE SEND AND ARE SENT

A time of intercession may follow here, highlighting the needs of the world and the community in which the congregation meets.
Now may the God of hope fill us with all joy and peace in believing , that we may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Now to him who, by the power at work within us, is able to accomplish abundantly far more than we can ask or imagine: to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, for ever and ever. Amen.
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