1st Quarter - Year A- Issue of WorshipAid
December, January and February (2001-2002)

Prayers for January 13, 2002

Baptism of the Lord

Prayer of Invocation

Pastor: For water, we praise you.

People: For the way it touched Jesus and the way it touched us, in holy baptism.

Pastor: For shells, we praise you.

People: For their emptiness and their ability to pour, for their color and diversity, for the way they let us collect them.

Pastor: For oceans, we praise you.

People: For their depth and light, fish and coral, microbes and magnificence.

Pastor: For seaworthy things, and how they become holy.

People: We praise you. Amen.

Prayer of Confession

For the way we have forgotten who we are as Yours and Yours alone, for the way we have forgotten the name given us at our baptism, forgive us. Forgive us for no longer feeling and acting each day as a part of the Your family, the family of God. Rename us and let us be Yours again. Remind us and let us be Yours again. Amen.

Pastoral Prayer

You quench our thirst like a glass of cold water on a hot day. You handle our stress as thought you were a fresh breeze or a bubbling brook. You are a fountain; you play with light as water. You dance the air as thought it were a high school gym and you were a teenager
in tennis shoes. You are fun in a world bereft of fun. You keep on baptizing babies with a gleam in your eye, almost as if you know something about life and world, which we do not. Is it supposed to be fun? Let us join you in answering yes, let us join in shouting yes, in the name of our baptism. Amen.

Offertory

These gifts join the gift of our time and our tongue this week. Let one kind word join every dollar we have put in the plate—let us double our money, double our kindness, double our love and enjoyment of You. Amen.