Piloting Faith: The most important thing to remember as you start a new week...

A Word for the Day...

As we begin a new week, think back over your weekend:

• What experiences and people are you grateful for?

• Who did you spend time with who made you feel loved, appreciated and valued?

• What memories do you want to hold onto as you look at the week before you?

Your answer to these questions are the guardrails to your "best life." You may be heading back into the rat race, but your life - what matters most - is shaped by the ways you love God, love others and allow them to love you in return. You may accomplish amazing things in this coming week. I hope you do. Yet in the end, it all comes down to the quality of relationships that support and sustain you through it all.

Love boldly, full-hearted and with your whole self. Then you will know the richness of life that God hopes for us all.

- Rev. Cameron Trimble, author of Piloting Church: Helping Your Congregation Take Flight

Prayer for the Week

Gracious God, we find ourselves in abundance. We feel great sadness but also great love in our world. We worry about those who feel forgotten; we worry about the people who tell stories of persecution because their difference is seen as criminal. We turn to you, Holy Creator, to free us from worry and to bless our hurting neighbors with abundant kindness.

We pray for the unemployed and the unpaid.
Bless them, O Lord.

We pray for families: couples who are marrying, women who are pregnant or hoping to become pregnant, couples who are divorcing, the caregivers, and the ones needing care.
Bless them, O Lord.

We pray for all who work for justice and for all who seek the truth.
Bless them, O Lord.

We pray for the people improving our communities: the blood, bone marrow, and organ donors; the educators; the volunteers; and the funders.
Bless them, O Lord.

We pray for the people who feed us: the hands in the fields and on the farms, the hands that package and test foods, and the hands that cook meals.
Bless them, O Lord.

We pray for those working in health care and for those in their care, for the hungry and the obese, for the disabled, and for those who are healing.
Bless them, O Lord.

We pray for all people making difficult choices.
Bless them, O Lord.

We pray for those who are at the end: the coming home, the graduating, the retiring, the grieving, and the dying.
Bless them, O Lord.

We thank you for the abundance of grace you give to each of us so that we may give grace to the world.
Bless us, O Lord. Amen.

*Adapted from http://worldinprayer.org/.