We gather to celebrate the living Christ,

The birth of the Uniting Church in Australia and The congregation of Albany Creek, past, present and future.

We are your hands Lord:

The hands that established a church family in this community,

The hands that preach, minister, witness and live our lives in this community

And the hands that hold together as we pray for this community and beyond.

We are your people Lord:

The people, that care for one another in good times and bad,

The people, that pray for other parts of the world where others, suffer, war, hunger and grieve.

The people, that create community to and provide for strangers in need and don’t shy away.

The people that mission through our groups, garage sales, fetes, stalls, social events, weddings, baptisms, funerals and services.

The people that welcome the lonely, to enter and find a friend.

The people that welcome those grappling with the post modern world; and offer more questions and hope.

We pray for the future of the church worldwide.

That the power of love and the message of Jesus Christ extends beyond borders and fills lives with forgiveness, hope and love.

We pray that our service in this community stays fresh and relevant to its needs.

Embracing change as societal expectations continue to redefine and challenge us and our beliefs.

And, we pray for people of other faiths.

Where there is hate and bigotry we pray for unity, tolerance and understanding. And that we live our lives reflecting these attitudes, especially in a time where it is easy to be closed minded. Where different is dangerous.

We see the challenges before us and pray for strength as we, the Albany Creek Uniting Church family face them together.

Happy Anniversary.

“And the people said”: Amen.

Prayer written by John Dangerfield, and shared with the congregation on Sunday 18th June 2017

Lord, you are the light of the world.  You are the centre of our creativity and the source of our loving spirits.  We ask that you will spread your brilliance to enlighten our dark places and illuminate our minds.

We ask you to show us how to reach out to others and how to deal with those whose lives have been shattered by warfare, violence, and incompetent and uncompromising governments.

We ask you to stir the hearts of people and show them how to love where there is hate and to share where there is greed.

Lead us to be a caring, thoughtful people who seek after peace, justice, and harmony.

We pray for the community in which we live.  For our family, our neighbours, and our friends.  For our parish and for the loving warmth of our church community.

We especially give you thanks for those who spread your words of truth and faith, and those who freely volunteer their time and talents to help others.

We bring before you the congregations, agencies, and leaders of the Uniting Church in Australia and all those who follow your precepts.

We give you thanks for the witness of our brothers and sisters in the congregations of St. Margaret’s Uniting Church in Hackett, Canberra, and St. James Uniting Church in Glenfield, Sydney.  Be with them, we pray, support them, and guide them as they share your love with their communities.

Help us to be more attentive and caring towards all those who travel the path of life with us, regardless of who they are and what they believe.

Make us aware of the needs of:

• The unemployed and the under-employed,
• The sick, the sad, and the sorrowing.

Lead us to be a positive influence in places:

• Where there is no love and no hope and
• Where there can only be found selfishness and indifference, and

Give us the resolve to be able to make changes for good.

• We also ask you to sharpen our awareness to the silent suffering of those we hold most dear, and
• We also remember before you those whose lives are ebbing away. May they be able to pass into the warmth of your embrace with dignity and expectation.

Hear, O Lord, these prayers which we offer to you

Make us children of the light,

Help us to spread love and good will to the lonely,

Strengthen us to wipe away the tears of those who are hurting and

The courage to ease the numbness of fear.

Thank you, Lord, for all that you are, and for all that you give us.

Thank you for the potential we have to be able to do more for your people.

Thank you for your creation which gives us so much more than we could have ever thought possible and

Thank you for allowing us to abide in your love until our lives’ end.

Amen

(Written by David Bell and shared with the congregation on 11 June 2023)

From every corner of this beautiful world, that we call home, there are so many stories of sorrow and hatred.

Humanity is pitted against itself and in the ensuing conflicts so many innocent people die, are maimed, or are left homeless.

How, O Lord, can we, as a race, take delight in creating such inconceivable tragedy among their own kind?

Your name, O God, is so often used as an excuse to indiscriminately fire a gun, to plunder and to destroy.

We especially remember today those who are suffering as a result of the war in the Ukraine, the supressed women in Afghanistan, and minorities throughout the world, that are slowly being suffocated by oppressive inflexible governments.

Each day we hear of the lives that are lost to influenza and COVID and the untold number who are suffering and dying as a result of natural disasters.  Disasters which, in some small part, through ignorance and thoughtlessness we have brought upon ourselves.

We pray for your guidance so that we, as a species, can control our desires, our greed, our intolerance, our indifference, and our folly for the good of all people and for all of your creation.

We ask you, Lord, to be with our leaders.  Give them insight to be able to make decisions that are for the common good and that are acceptable to you.

We pray for workers in our health industries and ask that their grievances may be heard and that their needs may be met.

We are faced with more people who have become stateless, and who are living in refugee camps or detention centres.  May the decisions made about their welfare, by those in authority, be honest and fair.

We remember those who have been ill or who are recovering from surgery.  With your help may they regain their health and strength again.

We pray for those who are grieving.  Those who have lost their life’s mate, or a child, or a close friend.  Lord, please be with them as they mourn.

There are those in our community who are unemployed or who are facing unemployment.  May they receive comfort in their time of loss and support in the uncertainty of tomorrow.

Some can see no light at the end of the tunnel and have resigned themselves to being unemployed for the rest of their lives.  We pray that you will be with them and that you will guide them into new experiences and different ways in which they can exercise their abilities.

There are those among our church family who are hurting and who are facing an unknown future.  We ask that you will be with them, and you will comfort them.

As we sit in the pews today, we pray that you will make us more aware and more sensitive to those around us, to those beside us, to those in the street that we see every day, and to those in our families.

As we leave here this morning help us to go with a new resolve that we will try to see something new and refreshing in every face we see.

Help us to be your people, help us to spread your love throughout our neighbourhood and throughout your world.

This we pray in the name of Jesus Christ, our brother, and our friend.

Amen

(Written by David Bell and shared with the congregation on 16 July 2023)

Let’s pray

Lord we pray for those that have broken and have heard your Word; on the way down or when they’ve hit rock bottom. Amidst the devastation, the damage, the trauma, you are there with all the pretence pulled back. You bring acceptance and love, two things really needed in the times.

With our own brokenness and our individual experiences, we pray for those going through these events and moments now.

For the grieving of a loved one, a person or a pet, where love has been shared and is now gone and a hole (or yawning gap remains). While words from us may not bring comfort, we stand beside them just the same. Our faith in action, your will, your love.

We pray for those who have lost livelihoods due to circumstances beyond their control. It’s so easy to stay bitter. It’s like visiting an old grumpy friend. Lord we pray that; the nudge to move on and let go is felt and healing begins.

Lord we pray for those with addictions, that wreck them personally and toll on the friends and family. We pray that service and supports are available as those with addiction seek help. These are long roads of recovery, but they are possible. Bless the team of professionals and volunteers around the person with an addiction, that they can help the person break through the addiction cycle and begin rebuilding lives.

There are many times when we the broken, rebreak and stumble and fall again. We give thanks and pray for those that love and support us, when all feels lost. Bless them.

In our closing moment of prayer, we pause and pray for those that we know are broken and hiding it or those whose brokenness and subsequent journey is one catastrophe after another and we can’t turn away. (Pause) Lord we pray for them and those around them and the role we play in their lives, even if it’s just fleeting, may your Spirit bless us, as we help them.

Amen

(Written by John Dangerfield and shared with the congregation on 3 June 2018)

So, Lord, we prepare,

What do you want of me?

Lord says, Through Covid and now Advent, be!

Be the one who prays for others in quiet and loud moments

Be the one, who’s love for others they can see.

Be the one who’s greatest gift is presence,

Be with them for me.

Rest sure my Will will not send you where my grace cannot keep you,

But be with them for me.

To be afraid, it’s normal, you see,

The disciples, fisherman were petrified

But be with them for me.

So pray with others, walk with them, drink cups of tea,

Filled with my spirit, I am with you.

But be with them for me!

Amen

(Written by John Dangerfield and shared with the congregation on 6 December 2020)

Peter, James and John are here with Jesus, on this mountain. Why here?

The light!

Peace, grace, joy….love.

I fall to my knees! I am with the divine. Time stops. I want to stay, be…. dwell.

I can’t. We return. To what? The grind of life. Humanity.

I have experienced the presence of the divine, what now?

I must go on? What do I do God?

I love those that Facebook says are wrong!

I love those that are shamed, humiliated, broken.

To hold those who are ……. Untouchable.

To see, the invisible.

I sit with my eyes closed and pray, hoping again for a touch of the divine.

This faith I have, doesn’t make life easier. I’m challenged, conflicted.

I see people of great faith, through my envious eyes. They have it easy.

I pray for world peace, and sound like a Miss World contestant.

I pray for my neighbour and feel like I’m too small minded.

Oh God.

I am confused.

I pray you put me where I need to be, around the people that need my frail faith. That’s a risk, but you know that already. And yet, you still love me.

And so, I pray for world peace and my crazy neighbours, and me

Amen

(Written by John Dangerfield and shared with the congregation on Sunday 3rd March 2019)

This prayer was shared with the congregation on 2 April 2017 following on from devastating floods experienced in South East Queensland.  Written by John Dangerfield.

With the events of this week, our prayers go out people up and down the coast,

The lives disrupted, homes inundated, the crops and farms flattened, livelihoods changed.

Father, bring help and restoration to those affected and comfort to the families and loved ones of those missing or lost in the waters.

We give thanks for recovery teams, volunteers, our community leaders and those that made hard decisions leading to the protection of life.

For those quiet moments of compassion, like rescuing animals, sharing meals with strangers, offering a hand to move furniture and then helping each other with the clean up.

Father, this isn’t over yet. As we gather to pray, people and towns are still suffering as water courses where it usually doesn’t.

I pray that we find ways of helping where we can.

Yet, in other parts of our country water is precious, dams are dry and hope fades with each day with cloudless skies. Lord this is crazy, floods, drought and despair.

I cry out like the blind beggar as Jesus passes by, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”

Jesus says, what do you want of me? We say, ‘soft rain, water in dams, courage to bear witness for you and human compassion to help each other”. Father, we see the harshness of our land, the contradictions, the pain. Holy Spirit pour over our nation and beyond into the hearts of men, women, children bringing healing and a yearning for you.

Amen

Heavenly father we bring to you our prayers for others.

Today we reflect on the needs of others both near and far.

We pray for Syria. We pray that this Government protects it people, rather than suppressing them and massacring, non-combatants, the old, women and children. That the international community does not sit back and watch idly by, as terror reins down

Stir the minds and consciences of peoples around the world, to protect those who dare to oppose an oppressive dictator and the innocents.

Lord, we give you thanks for a High Court in our country that is prepared to right the wrongs of the past; to quash Terra nullius and restore the respect of our traditional inhabitants on this ancient land.

Father, we pray for the descendants of Eddie Mabo who, with us will mark the 20^th anniversary of the High Court, Mabo decision, and the subsequent development of native title throughout Australia. We know that an independent judiciary helps to set the course of a nation and a judiciary restrained allows its people to be at risk, and for that reason our thoughts and prayers turn to Fiji and Papua New Guinea, where independence and democracy are under threat.

Lord we pray that the rule of law outlasts personal and military ambitions, so that democracy is restored and personal freedoms returned.

For the keepers of democracy, Lord, we pray for our defence forces in action and in peace-keeping around the world. Keep them safe and up hold their loved ones while they are away. Also we thank you for the recent safe return of a contingent from Afghanistan in the last week.

Lord this has been a devastating week for families on our roads across the country. Let your presence be felt as they ache for the loss of a loved family member or friend. Let the words “I will never leave you nor forsake you”; be meaningful to them in their quiet moments, as their loss crushes their spirit. {PAUSE} Let meaning and hope be returned to their lives.

Dear Lord, we pray for each other in this room. You know our fears, our desires, our anger, our hurt, our shame, our hopes and our aspirations. May we be there for each other and for those who are not with us today. We uphold our ministry and leadership team for their work with us, our groups and the wider community where we live and work each day.

Amen

(Written by John Dangerfield, and shared with the congregation on 3 June 2012)