In many traditions, the Good Friday prayer of intercession serves as an annual opportunity to bring before God all the burdens and concerns of God’s people. As such, this congregational prayer is often long and wide-ranging. This prayer has been written for Good Friday in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic but can be adapted for other contexts.
Resources by Chris Schoon
The creational nature of the garden-kingdom metaphor can help build visuals and object lessons for preaching, enrich the worship environment, and shape how a congregation walks through the big movements of the biblical story.
Confession is a good and fitting dimension of what we do in worshiping the One who is completely holy and righteous.
Mission unfolds in our homes and backyard gardens. Mission extends across generations and welcomes new people into our families. Mission seeks the well-being and shalom of the whole city. And this day-in, day-out mission of being God’s people includes praying for the city in which we live.
Though not prone to proof-texting, the missional church conversations in which I often find myself do have a few favorite passages that are often employed with a mic-drop emphasis. Jeremiah 29:4-7 is one of those go-to texts:
Tiffany. Sherman. Webster. Albion. Devil’s Punchbowl. Over the last 8 years, these and several of the other 100+ waterfalls in Hamilton, ON, have become my friends. Admittedly, I feel a bit weird describing these locations as friends, as if my social relationships now include inanimate objects. But quite honestly, I know these waterfalls better – and likely have more pictures from my time with them - than I do with 90% of the people I’m connected to via my social media accounts.
This litany is adapted from one I wrote for our worship gathering on the Sunday of Canadian Thanksgiving weekend. The litany draws from the 1 Chronicles 16 account of David arranging musicians, priests, and others to praise God after the ark of the covenant had returned to Jerusalem. The celebratory context and the involvement of a wide range of voices and instruments encourages us to include multiple voices and instruments in our own thanksgiving celebrations.
One evening 15 or so years ago, as I stepped out onto our front porch, I encountered a surprise guest, or I should say, several surprise guests. An adult opossum with a few much younger ones sat quite comfortably in a row on the 3-feet high concrete ledge that wrapped around our porch. They were down on the right side, at the opposite end of where I had come out. They stared at me and I stared at them — all of us frozen in the uncertainty of what to do next.
