Prayer For Community Building
Dear Lord,
You love when your people live and walk in communion! I know you desire for us all to have relationships around us that are willing to walk with us and do life with us. It is when we are in community with other believers that we grow the most. God, bring friends into our lives that will pray for us and encourage us but also challenge us. Build a community Bible believing Christ followers around us.
In Jesus' name, amen!
And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles (Acts 2:42-43).
The early Church was diligent in their obedience and adherence towards the apostles' doctrine. Prayer was obviously an essential part of what was taught and exemplified in their midst. They dedicated themselves to obeying all the apostles taught them and as a result of their devotion, obedience, and prayer, the Holy Spirit built them into a powerfully effective community. The fear, awe, and reverence of God came upon each of them as they experienced signs and wonders in answer to their prayers.
We might be prone to think of the early Church as a phenomenal, over-the-top, unusual, awe-inspiring, super-star church, but I offer to you that what they did was normal for all who have faith in Jesus Christ. These miraculous signs that followed obviously built their faith and also molded them into community, the likes of which the world had never seen. Nothing could break their bond; nothing stopped the construction of this God-ordained edifice, for its foundation is Jesus Christi. In reference to this community, the apostle Paul says, who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? [] Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us (Romans 8:35,37). As we face trials as a community, we pray, God answers miraculously, and our faith is built up as we grow together. God compacts us together, and we are further shaped through prayer. The amazing results to prayer such as angelic visitations, the paralyzed and the blind healed, and the dead raised should be normal to us. Years ago, Watchman Nee wrote a book entitled The Normal Christian Life in which he asserts that such manifestations should be normal in the life of a Christian. Why? They should be normal because nothing is impossible for God.
God's desire is to create us into one. One way He does that is through His answers to our corporate prayers. He builds corporeity according to what Paul describes in the following verses: Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a swelling place of God in the Spirit (Ephesians 2:19-22).
God build your community,
From brokenness and indifference,
Build love and caring,
For you, for each other, for your creation.
God build your community,
From self centredness and independence,
Build friendship and compassion,
For the marginalized, the abandoned and the despised.
God build your community,
From mistrust and misunderstanding,
Build unity and togetherness,
For other peoples, religions and nations.
God build your community,
May we build together your living community,
Bound together by love and joy,
Interrelated to all God's people, to the earth and all creation.
As people head to school and work, I ask that You would help us to love one another through our work. Thank you for the roles each person in our community plays so we can all benefit! I ask Your forgiveness for the ways we work for our own glory, control, and comfort; for others' approval of us; and out of fear. Creator, reorder our worship so that we're not making a name for ourselves (Genesis 11:4), but so your Name and renown are our goals (Isaiah 26:8). Turn the eyes of our community's hearts outward, so that we are inspired to use our gifts to serve. Like Ruth, multiply our faith in you and our service performed out of love so it produces far more than we'd ever comprehend. Lift up specific friends and neighbors in their work.
Bread of Life, I pray for the spiritually starving in my neighborhood. You commanded Peter to feed Your lambs. Will you show my family practical ways to feed them from Your table? Thank you for religious freedom where I live! (Or, We ask you to pave the way for more religious freedoms here!) Create an awareness in this community of our need for You. Please forgive us: We have committed two evils: we have forsaken You, the fountain of living waters, and dug out cisterns for ourselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water. Free us from the false fulfillment of materialism, entertainment, addictions, other's approval, disordered priorities, and busyness. Let your truth be spoken and lived out in the homes and lives of your people here, and from our houses of worship. Fill the souls of my communityand start with my own family. Pray for specific spiritual needs you've seen.
Almighty God, you have created all people and all of creation. We give you thanks for this gift we're invited to engage with hope, joy and love as your disciples. Open our hearts and our eyes to see our communities as you would have us to see them. Help us to find courage to sit and hear others when so often we want to be heard first. You are good and you are gracious, O God. Let us see all people as children of you, who created us all. It is in the name Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen.
Heavenly Father, you gather us together in our faith journey
Trusting in you, we join one another as a community
A community of faith on a journey
A journey to grow ever deeper in our faith
In our Love
In our Desire to long for you
Along the way, remind us of your Love
Of your sacrifice for us
Of your ever mindful presence
Let us never lose hope along the way
Help us to be strong
Strong in Faith
Strong in Love
Strong in our Desire to be ever mindful of your presence
For it is in your strength and Love and the Graces you bestow upon us, that we can go out and share in your Love and Faith with all those in our community.
It is in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord who lives and reins with you and the Holy Sprit one God For ever and ever
AMEN
Loving and gracious God, we come before you with unlimited confidence in your love and mercy. Take from us those painful anxieties that separate us from you. Take from us those impediments to building a community of persons committed to bringing about your reign. Give us this day and all our days the grace to be faithful to our call. Amen.