Making All Things New
Service Prayers for the Fifth Sunday of Easter 

Call to Worship  adapted from Psalm 148

Leader:             Praise the One who commanded your creation! 

People:            Praise God, you angels, from the highest heights!

                        Let sun and moon and shining stars rejoice!

                        Let praise resound from the earth itself, from the deepest seas!

                        Fire and hail, snow and frost!

                        Mountains and hills, fruit trees and cedars!

                        Creeping things and flying birds:

                        glory in your Creator!

                        Young and old together! Men and women alike!

                        Rulers of the earth and common folk in unity:

                        praise God’s holy name!

All:                  Let us worship God!

Prayer of Invocation unison

                        Speak to us, Giver of Life, and make us new. 

                        We thirst for the waters of eternal life,

                        we yearn to know ourselves as Resurrection People. 

                        Send your Holy Spirit upon us this day,

                        and create in us your new heaven and new earth. 

                        Speak to us words of comfort and hope,

                        words of challenge and courage. 

                        Come: move among us, we pray. 

Prayer of Confession

                        We confess, Glorious One,

                        that we are quick to criticize what we don’t understand,

                        and eager to judge what we can’t fully comprehend. 

                        You are the Alpha and the Omega,

                        the beginning and the end of all things,

                        and yet we pretend to have knowledge equal to yours. 

                        Who are we to hinder your movement in the world?

                        Teach us, O God. 

                        Help us to humble ourselves,

                        and open our eyes and ears and hearts and

                        minds to your leading. 

                        Grant even to us the repentance that leads to life,

                        and show us how we can be made new.

Assurance of God’s Love

                        What God has made clean, you shall not call profane. 

                        Through the promise of resurrection,

                        we have all been made new people. 

                        Our God, who makes all things clean,

                        has slaked our thirst with the water of life,

                        and sated our appetites with the bread of salvation. 

                        Thanks be to God!

Invitation to Sharing

                        The commandment to love one another is inclusive and ongoing

                        – our charge to love does not stop at these walls,

                        does not cease at the property line,

                        but keeps moving ever outward,

                        to the community and the nation and the world. 

                        We are called to circle the globe with God’s love,

                        and to do that we must pool our resources,

                        the gifts God has entrusted to us.

Prayer of Dedication

                        Giver of Life and New Life,

                        bless the offerings we bring to you today,

                        that through them we may share your love

                        with the whole world. 

                        Bless us, too, to do your will and to do your work. 

                        Let us be the spring of the water of life,

                        the new heaven and new earth,

                        the messengers of your glory. 

Benediction

                        Christ has given us a new commandment:

                        that we love one another, as Christ has loved us. 

                        By this, everyone will know that we are Christ’s disciples,

                        if we share that love with the world. 

                        And through this love, all things will be made new. 

                        Go now, and do as Christ commands.  Amen.

 Making All Things New: Service Prayers for the Fifth Sunday of Easter was written by the Rev. Mary Nelson Abbott , Pastor of Malletts Bay Congregational Church UCC in Colchester, VT, and the Treasurer of the 2030 Clergy Network.

Copyright 2010 Local Church Ministries, Congregational Vitality and Discipleship Ministry Team, United Church of Christ, 700 Prospect Avenue, Cleveland, OH  44115-1100.  Permission granted to reproduce or adapt this material for use in services of worship or church education.  All publishing rights reserved.