A Liturgy for a People who put Jesus at the centre

Our Jesus
Our Alpha and Omega
Our Purpose
The axis on which the world turns
The centre on which our lives are held.

Forgive us, oh Lord
For where we have moved other idols
Into Your rightful place
Where we have worshipped 
Our selves
Our spouses
Our children
Our comforts
Our monuments of success
Where we have not loved You with the mosaic of ourselves.

How can we forget we are called to live 
With Your name painted on our hearts
Cradling our minds
Echoing in our mouths
Defining our days
Enthroned in our bones?

We declare again, in collective faith
You are our Time-Keeper
Our Shadow-Lifter
Our Reason-Maker
Our Noise-Shifter
Our Pathway-Pointer

We will attune our ears to Your Good-Shepherd voice (oh how we love Your voice)
We will follow You to green pastures, even if we can’t yet see them
We will commit to hard-work habits that keep our feet and souls weighted in purpose
We will daily posture in surrender to You – even when (especially when) it feels too hard
We will fill our homes, heads and hearts with notes of worship, so Your words are loudest
We will wildly and tenaciously grasp  
The victory, the provision, the power, the flourishing, the blessing
You have jaw-droppingly gifted us.

Our Saviour and Lord
In the middle of the storm
In the middle of the mountain-top moment
In the middle of the stumbling, the seeking and the sojourning 
In the middle of our usual Tuesday, our standard Thursday, our racing Saturday, our corporate Sunday
In the middle of our identity where You whisper ‘my beloved’
In the middle of the fire that flickers with Kingdom coals

There in the middle – be in the middle.

There and then, and only there and then (despite what the chatter may say)
Is the Life we long for.
Is the Life we were born for.
Is the Life you love for.
Is the Life you gave for.

We put up our hands again today for that Jesus-centred Life.
We’re all in.
Amen.

© Emma Schroeder

A Liturgy for a People who Grow as Influencers

We find ourselves here again
Shaking off our preoccupation with self
Kicking to the curb our comparison traps and pitfalls
And instead feet ready, heart ready, goal ready and 
‘Forgetting what is behind, straining towards what is ahead 
And pressing on towards the goal to that we’ve been called.’

This call is to grow in You.
This call is to take up space in a room (and city), as we are agents of change.
This call is to influence, not be influenced.

Maker of all, let Your Kingdom come in and through us;
In our workplaces, our schools, our homes and our businesses.
That we will be care-takers and meaning-makers of the gifts that You have fashioned within us.
Holy Spirit breathe on these embers now and start a gift-fire.

We commit to using these gifts in the big and the little
In the extraordinary and the ordinary
In the middle and the muddle.

We see that we are a people whose 
Voices, pens, words, sounds, systems, designs, colours, creativity and conversations 
Will go above the noise, the clutter, the feasts, the chaos, the ‘look at me’ dialogues,
To the ones, the tens, thousands and millions
Because You have called us to be story-tellers of influence.

We surrender to Your ‘let-there-be’ light growing in us step by step and day by day;
A light that is up-lifting, door-opening, service-bringing, integrity-breathing, feet-grounding.
We declare again, maker of Heaven and Earth, grow us from the inside out.
Form us in Your glory-drenched light.
Amen.

© Emma Schroeder

A Liturgy for a People who Go Beyond

Even when we are caught in shadows and lament
And our words and walk feel full of cement
May we lean in the direction of others.
Lean in the direction of our neighbours, our community, our Martu brothers and sisters,
Our families across the oceans
May we lean towards the broken, the lost, the misplaced, the mistaken and the misunderstood.

Keep writing your name on our hearts, dear Lord Jesus
Right next to the names of others.
May this be the stamp by which we are known.

Holy One, emblazon us to be Your
Light-bearers,
Hope-cultivators, 
Peace-ambassadors,
Love-choreographers,
Story-rewriters.

Oh Lord, give us Your eyes to see.
Eyes to see the other just as You did;
The Other blanketed in shame
The Other despised in the dirt
The Other filling her water jars, yet still so painfully thirsty.

Empower us
Ready us
Break us
Burden us
Move us
To give faithfully of what is in our hands and our harvests 
Knowing You breathe supernatural life on seed.

To pray with plus-one hearts and groans of faith.

To go across the street, across the room, across the desert, across the ocean, across ourselves.

Merciful Father and Maker, 
Let us daily attune our ears to the ache of heaven
Where there is room for so many more
And we are called to hold the door open.
Amen.

© Emma Schroeder

A Liturgy for a People who Foster Family and Friendships

Our gracious Lord, may we be a people that put on love like a familiar and well-worn jacket
A love that is as deep as it is wide
A love that bears all manner of burdens
A love that binds with a unifying thread
A love that echoes blessing
A love that looks through the lens of what can we give before what we can get 
A love incubated in the kaleidoscope of relationships
A love with Your Name Cross-stitched on it.

We pray, oh God, that this love will be left as snapshots on 
Café tables, school hallways, breakfast benches, dinner tables and in children’s bedrooms.
And these snapshots will tell picture stories of our lives magnificently entwined with Yours 
Long after we are gone.

Build in us, relational God
The ongoing desire
To have Your hope-bringing, peace-giving light evidenced in those we do our lives with and around.
A light that will trip others up in the most beautiful and surprising ways – 
And cause them to ask ‘what do you have and where do I find it?’

We need Your daily help like bread, oh Bread of Life
In our eating and walking and living and sharing with others
We daringly ask for – 
Outstretched hands (and not clenched fists)
Scandalous compassion and kindness that plays the melody of the Kingdom
Knee-bending humility that wafts with forgiveness
And Wisdom, oh yes Wisdom (how often we leave her behind a closed door)
We ask for all these things, as we pray ourselves full.

We declare we are building stories, building people, building generations.
So help us today, oh loving Lord, as we seek, find and use the tools 
We need to get down to this artful business of building.
We stand ready to sculpt anti-fragile, not-always-pretty-but-indeed-gritty
Families, children, marriages, friendships and people.
Trademarked by Your love.
Amen.

© Emma Schroeder

A Liturgy for a People of Discipleship Community

Oh Lord, You who by very definition and design is three-in-one
You who concretise perfect community
We stand mindful of the pervading pull to make it all about ourselves.
Forgive us again, oh relational God.
And draw us back towards the communal table.

May we break messy bread with others
May we roll up our sleeves and wash each other’s tired feet
May we sing out of tune and out of time in collective love
May we be lavish with our generosity, not our criticism
May we learn to mute the voice of preference and instead kindle unity
May we attune our ears knowing wisdom can come like a gift from another’s mouth
May we be engaged not in momentary glance, but with boots-and-all heartstrings.

May we always swing the pendulum towards giving, not just receiving
May we have the deep-breath courage to be accountable with a trusted few
May we remember the gripping honour and responsibility that we can help each other come more alive.

Oh sovereign Lord, we are reminded that 
The work of a disciple is indeed work
Tangled, communal work
Following You, our Shepherd Jesus, work.
And your Church, your Bride
Is the engine room, the building ground, the rolling-our-sleeves-up kitchen cafeteria 
For those who have put their hands up for such work.
So together, covered and scaffolded by Your justice, truth, love and grace
We are indeed showing up.
Amen.

© Emma Schroeder

A Liturgy for a People of Prayer

When our mouths have become full of anxious and ordinary words
And our minds have raced and run
When our heart is limping
And our soul is clouded and covered
When we are tripping up on the humdrum lines of the everyday
Let us invite You to the table of our heart’s conversation

You already have a place set for us
And a chair pulled up.

Be it  
In sleepy state
In pressured moment
In beachside meander
In zealous vision
In beige ordinary
In cumbersome crisis
In holy passion 
In weighty challenge
In the fabric of today’s tapestry
Let our hearts and words turn towards You in thinking and in conversation.

Show us the adventurous breadth and width, the beauty and power of Prayer
In tearful lament
In wrestling intercession
In breath-held whisper
In gathered voice
In telling groans
In echoing declaration
In gentle chats
In prophetic picture
In Scripture-soaked contemplation
In ‘Our Father.’

May we be those who pray without ceasing, 
In and through and around and beside all occasions
As oxygen to our lungs
As fuel to the Jesus-fire.
May our collective voices be heard saying:
Search us and break us
Forgive us and free us
Empower us and send us.

We are reminded again of the sacred scandal of having You so close
That You can hear our every word.
Amen.

© Emma Schroeder

A Liturgy for a People of the Word

Forgive us, oh Lord
For chasing shallow truth, quick fixes and bland bread
In the chattering media
In token conversation
In puffed-up opinion
In the cavern of self
For placing your Word under a pile of rowdy to-dos.

Awaken us again to the supernatural delight of your Word
Oh sovereign Lord, let us see You with Spirit-soaked eyes
On those life-breathed and life-breathing pages;
Those pages telling stories of ache, victory, power and humanity
Those pages threaded together in an unending narrative of Your love for us.

We declare again that Your Word will shape us, mould us, 
Transform us, search us, lantern-light the path for us
Define and find us.

Oh Author of all
Author of our all
You who write the stars and arrange the waves
We trust Your Word
We love Your Word
We bathe in the truth of your Word
We will go on a transformation treasure-hunt
And receive, in the waiting soil of our hearts,
The supernatural seed of your Word.

By grace and in faith, we heartily take a-hold with two hands
That our best year in the Bible
Is right within our reach,
So we open Your Good-News pages again today.
Amen.

© Emma Schroeder