Prayer for All Saints Day
We bless your holy name, O God, for all your servants who, having finished their course, now rest from their labors. Give us grace to follow the example of their steadfastness and faithfulness, to your honor and glory; through Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.
-from The United Methodist Book of Worship, 415
-from The United Methodist Book of Worship, 415
Labels: holy-days, Methodist Book of Worship, Spirituality and Liturgy, Witness of the Saints
posted by Rev. Daniel McLain Hixon at 11/01/2011
2 Comments:
We are celebrating All Saints this coming Sunday (11/6). Like many UM Churches, we will be remembering the names of our faithful departed from the last 12 months. I was surprised that neither the Book of Worship nor the Board of Discipleship website had a form for this. So this is what I came up with (which echos some of the Scriptures that we will be using):
Let us remember those members of this church who have fought the good fight, who have finished the race, who have kept the faith. Let us remember those who have died in the last year, and now rest from their labors in the presence of the Lord.
(Response after each name is read:)
(Leader):Lord, we give you thanks for this good and faithful servant.
(All:)Give us grace to imitate those who imitate Christ.
Then maybe we'll close out with the All Saints Prayer from The Book of Worship (featured above in this blog post) before moving on to the invitation to holy communion.
The Book of Worship does include a place for naming the honored dead in the Great Thanksgiving Prayer for All Saints (p. 74-75), but we wanted to do a little more than just that.
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