FROM OUR PASTOR
In response to the horrific murder of worshipers at a prayer meeting inside the sanctuary of the Emanuel A.M.E. Church in Charleston, I am asking the Nassau Presbyterian Church community to join me in prayer:
Merciful God we once again find ourselves coming before you with aching and disbelieving hearts. We lift before you our sisters and brothers in Christ in Charleston; a congregation and family members mourning the loss of a pastor and church members who died inside their house of worship. Yes, we pray too for the young man now arrested and his family. As Jesus wept over the city of Jerusalem that could not recognize the things that make for peace, we weep today as an evil act of violence once again shatters the hope for peace in the land. Holy One, as hatred and racism and gun violence once again come to the front page of the nation’s conscience, we fervently pray that you will lead us, encourage us, inspire us to work more intensely toward the Hebrew prophets’ vision of a peaceable kingdom and the Apostle Paul’s description of the more excellent way. By your grace and in the power of the Holy Spirit, save us, O God, from the tyranny of sin, the apathy of weak leaders, and the powers and principalities that profit from our fears. We are your body, O Christ! Your hands, your feet, and your voice. Multiply and make sacred our efforts to transform the world. Help us stand and speak and work for justice, until as Dr. King put it, we can “make of this old world, a new world”. In the name of Christ we pray. Amen.