Advent Light

Sunday Dec 31, 2023

• Liturgy

  CALL TO WORSHIP Psalm 17

  MUSIC Curated by Curt Muller
  Phil Wickham - This Is Our God
  Hillsong Worship - The Passion
  Leeland - Way Maker
  Cody Carnes - Firm Foundation

  PRAYER FOR AN HONEST NEW YEAR Written by Bobbi Salkeld

  As I thought about what to hope for in 2024, I zeroed in on this idea that we could enter a New Year with daring honesty.

  By this, I mean as truth-tellers, as people who risk authentic choices, and as those who do not look away from the pain and the glory of what it means to be human.

  So join me as we take a moment to reflect and pray this prayer for an honest new year. Begin with a deep, full-belly breath.

  [PRAYER]

  We are both petty and compassionate, big-hearted and small-minded, able to remember the good and refusing to let go of the bad.

  This year, Spirit of God, help us to love what we love, to live within our boundedness to people and places, and to contemplate what we have to give and what might be for us to enjoy.

  We are capable of humility and disqualifying pride, interconnected awareness and isolating fear, aware of our needs and a little bit lost in meeting them.

  This year, Spirit of God, help us to reach toward one another, to open our hearts to joy, gratitude, and change, and to put into the world the kind of love that heals souls and cares for bodies.

  We are confused about violence and scrappy with injustice, without an imagination for peace and hopeful in reconciliation, desiring shalom but not always offering it with grace.

  This year, Spirit of God, make our witness sturdy, our prayers unceasing, and our faith both quiet and rowdy whenever we trust you are near.

  Amen.