Praying TimePraying Timeforfor

HaitiHaiti

Teach Us to Love

Suggested Hymn

Lord Listen to Your Children PrayingBy Ken Medema

The Faith We Sing (TFWS) #2193

Haiti Cries . . . And We Cry With Them(A prayer as we search through the rubble)

Leader: Earth shaking Home breaking Ground-moved-the-mountain-into-my-way tragedy!

All: Broken bodies Broken hearts Broken lives.

Haiti cries And we cry with them.

Leader: God, Our hearts are aching as we try to imagine what the daylight brought to our brothers and sisters in Haiti.

All: Heal the young eyes that have seen far too much on this day.

Leader: Heal the hearts of many who have lost friends, family and a way of life on this day.

All: Be with those who are missing. And those who are dying outside of the grasp of Loving hands to hold them Loving voices to soothe them.

Leader: Move us over here from empathy to action

All: From sympathy to substance As we contemplate what can be done to help

Leader: Today

All: And many days Into a forever-changed future. Amen.

Haiti Cries . . . And We Cry With Them

(A prayer as we search through the rubble)

by Safiyah Fosuahttp://www.gbod.org/worship/default.asp?act=reader&item_id=48380

Repeat: Lord Listen to Your Children Praying

1 Corinthians 13:1-3 (Read Together)

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.

If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Prayer: Extend My Reach

So far, Haiti seems so farfrom here where I live

peering into a TV screen broadcasting misery

that splatters across my chest.

I want the images to do more than make me ache.

I need cries for help to touch more than my ears.

I long to matter to people when they most need aid.

So far, Haiti seems so farfrom my ability to help.

Extend my reach Lord.

May my meager giftsof money

prayerand a shoulder to cry onhelp one more person than would be helped

if I just turn awayand do nothing.

(“Extend My Reach” by Kwasi Kena) http://www.gbod.org/worship/default.asp?act=reader&item_id=48397)

Video Meditation

“Collect Our Tears”

(Located on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKEazYy_13E&feature=youtube_gdata)

1 Corinthians 13:4-7(Read Together)

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not

envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

1 Corinthians 13:8-11(Read Together)

Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways.

Prayer of ConfessionWe Are Selfish(Based on 1 Corinthians 13:1-13)

Gracious God, how often does selfishness wash through our good intentions?How often do we speak bold, sophisticated words to impress others? How often do we forget that we are what we are because of you? Remind us that our abilities are your gifts to us. Remind us that you loaned us some possessions in hopes that we would help others with them.

If we are guilty of living only to impress others—forgive us. If we gain status only by putting someone else down—forgive us. If we do things only for applause—forgive us. If all we do sounds like clanging cymbals and noisy gongs to you—call us to repent.

Humble us enough to serve. Humble us enough to pray.

Humble us enough to love you and people who may never say thank you to us.

(“We Are Selfish” by Kwasi Kena, The Africana Worship Book For Year C, Discipleship Resources, 2008. Used by Permission)

Silent Prayer

Words of Assurance

Leader: God sent pure love to us through Jesus Christ. Embrace the love of the Lord—now. Receive God’s forgiveness for any selfishness masquerading as good intentions.

Jesus’ love heals us, forgives us and accepts us without hesitation. Lord, we profess that we are your forgiven people. Inspire us to love others as thoroughly as you love us. Amen.

(“God Sent Pure Love” by Kwasi Kena The Africana Worship Book For Year C Used by Permission)

I Corinthians 13:12-13(Read Together)

For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

Closing Charge(Read Together)

Each day we have the opportunity to demonstrate what love is or what love is not.Lord, today and every day, Remind us of the implications of our choicesRemind us that we who call ourselves children of GodAre called to love one another, for everyone who loves is born of God. Amen.

"In the end we will remember not the words of our enemies,

but the silence of our friends."

--Martin Luther King, Jr.

Video: Haiti We Will Rise

(Located on GBOD Worship Web site http://www.gbod.org/worship/default.asp?act=reader&item_id=48419)

Acknowledgements

Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

“Haiti Cries . . . And We Cry With Them” (A prayer as we search through the rubble)by Safiyah Fosua http://www.gbod.org/worship/default.asp?

act=reader&item_id=48380

“Extend My Reach” by Kwasi Kenahttp://www.gbod.org/worship/default.asp?act=reader&item_id=48397

“Collect Our Tears”Words by Safiyah Fosua Video by Kwasi Kena; poem published in The Africana Worship

Book for Year B (Discipleship Resources, 2007) Used by Permission. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKEazYy_13E&feature=youtube_gdata

Acknowledgements

“We Are Selfish” by Kwasi Kena, in The Africana Worship Book For Year C, Discipleship Resources, 2008. Used by Permission

“God Sent Pure Love” by Kwasi Kena, in The Africana Worship Book For Year C, (Discipleship Resources, 2008). Used by Permission.

“Haiti, We Will Rise” words and Music by Stefan Youngblood (GBOD worship web site: http://www.gbod.org/worship/default.asp?act=reader&item_id=48419) Used by Permission.

Closing Charge by Kwasi Kena (Used by Permission)

B & W Clipart on slide one: Unknown artist, Hermano León Clipart (Used by Permission)http://www.cruzblanca.org/hermanoleon/