Hope Church Prayer Book seeks to promote a worship culture from Monday to Saturday by conveying worship resources from Sundays. Worship is not a thought, but an action; not a concept, but a practice. And the more we practice, the more in shape we get - in the shape of Jesus. So sing out loud or read a responsive prayer before dinner. Each month’s prayer book will now be available on Hope’s website under the resources tab!
This month’s Prayer Book is full of practices from our services that have been adapted to fit a more private, devotional setting. It’s divided into two parts, Lenten Liturgies and Regular Liturgies. We encourage you to engage in these practices for worship. Choose a few and do them out loud. Some can be done with a partner. Some can even be texted to a friend God lays on your heart. We are going to worship this month, it’s only a matter of who, so we offer the tools to point to the only one who deserves this type of attention.
Lenten Liturgies
Call to Worship
Lent is a season of humbling. Like Jesus humbled himself in the desert for 40 days, fasting and praying, so Christians for centuries have taken this season to follow in His footsteps, often fasting from something for the forty days leading up to Easter. And forty days is a long time to give something up.
In fact, Lent comes from the same word we get our word for “length”. In Spanish, it’s where the word “lento” comes from, which means slow. But the definition is not limited to the time it takes someone to do something, but the time it takes for something to get something, to understand it.
You see, there’s another length of forty time units in the Bible, but it wasn’t days, it was years. And it wasn’t Jesus in the wilderness, but God’s people Israel. Whereas Jesus was tempted away from the absolute Lordship of God and never wavered, Israel seemed to do nothing but waver. They were “lento”, and so are we. That’s why we practice Lent for forty days. That’s about how long it truly takes for something that we don’t normally see in ourselves – some shortcoming or pathology – to sink in. O, maybe our friends keep bringing this up and, they’re being nice and mentioning it like a passing note, no-big-deal, but it’s actually the thing that needs to change about us the most. And the things that need to change about us the most are most often the things we see the least.
So as we begin this season of Lent, let’s take time to see what God, in His grace, is showing us, for better or for worse. And let’s move those distractions and amusements that have perhaps kept us from seeing what the Holy Spirit has graciously, patiently, and redemptively been laying his finger upon. And don’t fret, because at the end of this process it all gets crucified and resurrected!
Psalm 90
Reader 1
Hear now our plight as finite creatures under the care of our infinite Creator Lord, you have been our dwelling place throughout all generations. Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.
Reader 2
You turn men back to dust, saying, “Return to dust, O sons of men.” For a thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night. You sweep men away in the sleep of death; they are like the new grass of the morning–though in the morning it springs up new, by evening it is dry and withered.
Reader 1
We are consumed by your anger and terrified by your indignation. You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your presence. All our days pass away under your wrath; we finish our years with a moan. The length of our days is seventy years–or eighty, if we have the strength; yet their span is but trouble and sorrow,for they quickly pass, and we fly away.
Reader 2
Who knows the power of your anger? For your wrath is as great as the fear that is due you. Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.
Reader 1
Relent, O LORD! How long will it be? Have compassion on your servants. Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days. Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us, for as many years as we have seen trouble.
Reader 2
May your deeds be shown to your servants, your splendor to their children. May the favor of the Lord our God rest upon us; establish the work of our hands for us–yes, establish the work of our hands.
Litany of Penitance
Reader 1
The story of God’s people throughout history is our story today – God took dust and made us into flesh – yet we return to dust by nature and by choice.
Reader 2
Let’s confess our sin and remember God’s compassion.
Most merciful God, we confess that with Adam and Eve we have doubted your goodness, we have taken life into our own hands and rebelled against your commands, pursuing short-lived pleasures instead of accepting your life-giving grace. So we pray:
ALL
You’re my one defense
My righteousness
O God, how I need You
Reader 1
We confess that we have sinned against you in thought, in word and in deed, by what we have done, and by forgetting what you have done.
Reader 2
We have not loved you with our whole heart, mind, and strength. We have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We have not forgiven others as you have forgiven us. So we pray:
ALL
You’re my one defense
My righteousness
O God, how I need You
Reader 1
We confess our lust, our greed, self-pity and despair. We reject the purity, hope, and peace that you offer.
Reader 2
For the pride, hypocrisy, and impatience of our lives, for our laziness and self-indulgence, for manipulating others, for forgetting your superiority… So we pray:
ALL
You’re my one defense
My righteousness
O God, how I need You
Reader 1
We live as if we, not you, were immortal, blind to human need and suffering, shrugging our shoulders at injustice and cruelty. We fear those who differ from us, forgetting that You accept us. So we pray:
ALL
You’re my one defense
My righteousness
O God, how I need You
Reader 2
Almighty and merciful Father, you know our frame, that we are dust– lifeless without your breath, lost without your finding us, condemned without your grace. Create in us new hearts, that we might live through you, Jesus Christ our Lord. AMEN.
Let’s now enter into a time of silence, to reflect on our specific sins and God’s specific mercies
Assurance of Pardon
Hear these words of assurance from Psalm 30:8-12
To you, O LORD, I called; to the Lord I cried for mercy: “What gain is there in my destruction, in my going down into the pit? Will the dust praise you? Will it proclaim your faithfulness? Hear, O LORD, and be merciful to me; O LORD, be my help.” You turned my wailing into dancing; you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy, that my heart may sing to you and not be silent. O LORD my God, I will give you thanks forever.
We are forgiven: be at peace. That’s a command: Be at peace. And take a moment to be God’s mouthpiece of peace to someone he lays on your heart. You may even send a text to someone right now: “The peace of Christ be with you.”
Regular Liturgies
Call to Worship
I love the song, Great Things. It’s such a great reminder to us as we begin to worship. God, You have done great things. God, You do great things. God, You will do great things. You have been faithful. You will be faithful. Your promise is yes and amen.
As Ryan shared with us a few weeks ago, “amen” comes from the Hebrew word for truth! Your promise is truth! Hallelujah! Praise the Lord!
As I was thinking about that promise, I was thinking about God’s love. All the way back in Genesis, God made a promise. When Adam and Eve sinned and were kicked out of the garden, God didn’t leave them, He made man a promise.
We have read the Jesus Storybook Bible to our kids, and sometimes it helps to simplify it. It often puts it so beautifully. It says:
“Before they left the garden, God whispered a promise to Adam and Eve: ‘I will come to rescue you! And when I do…I’ll get rid of the sin and the dark and the sadness…I’m coming back for you!’”
This passage also says:
“You see, no matter what, in spite of everything, God would love his children – with a Never Stopping, Never Giving Up, Unbreaking, Always and Forever Love.” What a promise.
For those that don’t prefer children’s literature, AW Tozer explained God’s love like this:
“If nothing in us can win Thy love, nothing in the universe can prevent Thee from loving us. Thy love is uncaused and undeserved. Thou art Thyself the reason for the love wherewith we are loved. Help us to believe the intensity, the eternity of the love that has found us. Then love will cast out fear; and our troubled hearts will be at peace, trusting not in what we are but in what Thou hast declared Thyself to be.”
Amen. Find a song to sing, perhaps this one, where we declare God’s Never Stopping, Never Giving Up, Unbreaking, Always and Forever Love.
Confession
Gracious God, we do need you.
We confess that we have forgotten that you, alone, are holy. That you, alone, are our righteousness. We confess our tendency to look at those around us and let the evidence of what we see speak shame or pride back to us, robbing us of peace or compassion. We misname self-deprecation as humility, and we masquerade our judgment as discernment. We confess that we lean towards aggression or retreating when conflict arises, favoring victory or comfort instead of community. We have forgotten the humanity of our neighbor, the stranger, the foreigner, and even our own family. Forgive us.
We confess, also, our many great needs. In our homes, in our health, in our relationships, in this nation, and throughout all the earth. We confess our tendency to exhaust ourselves with anxiety or anger or resentment. Lord, meet us here with mercy and hope. Help us to remember your steadfast love, your faithfulness through generations and through all of the days of our lives. Help us to look up and keep our eyes upon you. And remember and remember and remember. Amen.
Prayers
The Lord’s Prayer
I am so thankful for songs that not only give voice to what’s inside, but that also remind us what ought to be inside. They complete the double task of teaching us what to want, then how to ask for it. That’s how it is for the Lord’s Prayer. It not only teaches us how to pray, it reminds us of what to pray for, and it always begins with God, not us. So let’s pray this together.
Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be Your name,
Your kingdom come,
Your will be done,
on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins
as we forgive those who sin against us.
Lead us not into temptation
but deliver us from evil.
For yours is the kingdom, the power,
and the glory forever and ever
Amen.
Generosity Prayer
As we pray for God to give us His heart, now we pray for a specific aspect of His heart: His generosity. Let’s pray.
ALL
Holy Father, there is nothing I have that You have not given me. All I have and am belong to You, bought with the blood of Jesus. To spend everything on myself, and to give without sacrifice, is the way of the world that You cannot abide.
Reader 1
But generosity is the way of those who call Christ their Lord; who love Him with free hearts and serve Him with renewed minds. Who withstand the delusion of riches that chokes the Word; Whose hearts are in your kingdom and not in the systems of the world.
ALL
I am determined to increase in generosity until it can be said that there is no needy person among us. I am determined to be trustworthy with such a little thing as money that You may trust me with true riches. Above all, I am determined to be generous because You, Father, are generous.
Reader 2
It is the delight of Your daughters and sons to share Your traits, and to show what You are like to all the world.
Amen.
Now, let us take a brief moment of silence to ponder those ways in which God may be calling us to give generously of our resources
Commissioning
In Acts chapter thirteen, verses one through three, we have a picture of a church intent on worshiping and intent on responding to the Spirit whenever He met them in that heightened state of devotion with a specific call:
“In the church at Antioch there were prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen (who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch) and Saul. While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” So after they had fasted and prayed, they placed their hands on them and sent them off.”
So in our services, we take time to commission – to set apart – certain people or group of people with certain calls of God on their life. This past month we did so with Pastor Felipe, who, together with his wife Eva, have been called from Toluca, Mexico to Albuquerque, New Mexico, to start a Spanish-speaking church. Please take a moment to watch their commissioning and continue to pray for them and their work fervently.
