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Prayer
Requests
Pilgrim
Congregational Church,
United Church of Christ
Send your Prayer Requests to pilgrim@chattanooga.net
Pilgrim Prayer List
We publish a Pastoral Prayer e-mail. To include a concern on that list, or to receive these regular pastoral e-mail write to us at pilgrim@chattanooga.net.
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A Litany for the Third Sunday of Easter
In Response to the Violence at Virginia Tech
April 22, 2007
John H. Thomas
General Minister and President
United Church of Christ
Through the ages we hear the Risen Christ: "Simon, son of John, do you
love me?"
"Yes, Lord, you know that I love you."
Jesus said, "Feed my lambs." Yet today we grieve for precious lambs, not
fed, but slaughtered. For those sons and daughters, students and
classmates, colleagues and friends whose lives we cherish, whose loss we
mourn, we pray,
Lord, have mercy. [A TIME OF SILENCE IS KEPT]
Through the ages we hear the Risen Christ: "Simon, son of John, do you
love me?"
"Yes Lord, you know that I love you."
Jesus said, "Tend my sheep." Yet today your flock is scattered by fear at
Virginia Tech and throughout the world where guns and bombs kill and maim.
For those paralyzed by fear in Blacksburg and Baghdad, Kabul and Karachi,
Gaza and the Golan Heights, we pray,
Christ, have mercy. [A TIME OF SILENCE IS KEPT]
Through the ages we hear the Risen Christ, "Simon, son of John, do you
love me?"
"Yes, Lord you know every thing, you know that I love you."
Jesus said, "Feed my sheep." Yet today we are hungry -- hungry for peace,
hungry for justice, hungry for security, hungry for hope. For children
who look for bread but are given the crushing stone of violence, often
with our complicity, we pray,
Lord, have mercy. [A TIME OF SILENCE IS KEPT]
Take us, O God, to places we are reluctant to go, to the wounded places,
the shattered places, the terrified places. There may we feed your lambs
with compassion, tend your sheep with healing, feed your flock with hope.
There, with Peter, may we move from denial to discipleship, and thus find
strength in the midst of this week's sorrow and rage, to sing again the
Easter song, "Alleluia, Christ is risen!"
Christ is risen indeed. Alleluia! Amen.
(This prayer uses themes from the Gospel lesson for the third Sunday of
Easter, John 21:1-19)
United Church of Christ
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A Place Where a Community of Jesus Gathers
I’ve chosen my words carefully. What I’m searching for is an image of our life together. What has become increasingly important to me is an image that can be found in the New Testament. The image is one of many communities of Jesus. Pilgrim is not the community of Jesus, it is one among many communities of Jesus.
It took me a long time to see this. In order to see this I had to open myself to something other than what I had been taught along the way. I had to begin to see what has always been there. What I had been taught is that there was one New Testament Church. It was the Church of Luke and the Church of Paul. It was one community that had one way of doing things. But this had never been the case.
What is now clear to me is that there were always a variety of Jesus communities. There were always a number of small cells of folk who had experienced Jesus, or heard of him, or who had caught a glimpse of his vision of the empire of God. Peter and Paul were different! Each of the Gospels have something to say! (As do those that never made it into The Book.) Yet, these communities had some common elements: Day by day they broke bread together in memory of Jesus. They remembered the open table as an important image of how he lived. They talked about their experiences of him as they told and retold his stories. They worshipped God. They wrestled with what it meant to call Jesus the lord of their lives.
I see Pilgrim as being a place where a community of Jesus gathers. This is not the only community of Jesus. This is a community of Jesus. There are many communities of Jesus in this city. This is one and in this one the images of the open table, the shared stories, the worship of God, our mutual support of one another and our responsiveness to the needs of others in the way of Jesus help us to shape our life together.
This is the context in which we wrestle with what it means to call Jesus the lord of our lives. In this beloved community of Jesus our lives are enriched. We regularly gather to reconnect with one another. We seek to find those things that we need for our own faith journeys. Our prayers for one another and other acts of support are signs of the present realm of God. We tell stories, biblical stories, Jesus stories and our own tales from the road of the journey of our lives. And, in the heart of our shared life, we worship God.
Grace and peace,
John Mingus, Pastor 1995-2006 (Retired)
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During our worship we take prayer requests and
combine them into a Pastoral Prayer. Drop us a line if there is a request
that you wish to add.
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