Offertory Prayer

Invitation to the Offering

The offering you made last week empowered ministry within our congregation and in response to the needs of our community. It also helped support the work of ministries beyond the local church that reach people who are in desperate need to hear the good news of love and redemption. People here in our cities and communities who are immigrants trying to navigate their way to working status and citizenship find help through ministries such as Justice for Our Neighbors (JFON), which is a network of monthly clinics, hosted by more than 30 local United Methodist churches across the U.S. They provide professional legal services to immigrants for free, helping to reunite their families, secure immigration status, and enjoy the right to work. It also encourages churches to extend radical hospitality by providing places for community gathering and table fellowship. Coordinated by our General Board of Global Ministries, it is supported through our church’s giving to the World Service Fund. I invite you once again to give generously as we worship God through the sharing of our gifts, tithes and offerings.


May 19, 2013 – Day of Pentecost

Almighty God who comes to us in wind and fire, may the doors of our hearts be open to let your Holy Spirit blow in and your love and grace flow out! As we offer up these gifts to you this morning, may they empower mission and ministries that spread across all your creation like wildfire. May our giving help your church to be born anew, not as bricks and mortar, but as hearts on fire to serve others and make disciples for Jesus Christ. In his holy name, we pray. Amen. (Acts 2:1-21)


GBOD continues to deliver the full text of each month's offertory prayers via email. You may also find the Offertory Prayers online at www.GBOD.org


Written by Ken Sloane, Director of Stewardship for GBOD.



Tuesday, October 23, 2012

A Way Home, a Reflection on Isaiah 31:7-9

"There'll come a day," Isaiah has just said, "that you'll be able to plant vineyards and harvest your fields."

He continues with this promise by proclaiming that it's time to give thanks to the Lord and to ask to be saved.

The Lord's promise is to bring home those who have been scattered. Included in the promise is those who have had a hard time making it to their new home without help--specifically, the blind, the lame, the pregnant.

Like the blind man in Mark's gospel, these who are called will come.

Isaiah then Mark promised return, restoration, inclusion. Today, the church can continue to make this promise and to act it out. We can look at those people who have become excluded, separated, even lost, and figure out how to reach them with our message of inclusion, and, as importantly, figure out how to make our promise true.

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