God of good ideas,

    who began the world

    with light and word,

    who began again

    with flood and rainbow;

we acknowledge our frustrations with your church:

    its committees and structures,

    its method and systems.

These things have made us angry and sapped our energy.

 

God of new beginnings

    who began a new way

    of living with resurrection,

    who began a new community

    with tongues of fire;

    begin again here

    that structures may bend

    like dancing saplings;

    the past, present and future

    may be woven into 

    a fresh path of commitment.

 

May our ideas for your world and this community

    resonate in your presence,

    so that tested, tried, and challenged

    they may blossom in us

    as do dry places

    when longed-for rain falls.

 

Janet Lees

 

________________________

 

 

Sing to the Lord a new song,
    his praise from the end of the earth,
you who go down to the sea, and all that fills it,
    the coastlands and their inhabitants.
Let the desert and its cities lift up their voice,
    the villages that Kedar inhabits;
let the habitants of Sela sing for joy,
    let them shout from the top of the mountains.
Let them give glory to the Lord,
    and declare his praise in the coastlands.