A Prayer for Direction

Eternal God, Our Father, sweep over us in this moment with a sense of your nearness to each one as we bow in prayer. Shut out the clamorous voice of the world, our plans for the remainder of the day and things which face us tomorrow. Just let us now, free from care and free from labor, commune with you and get our lives straightened out.

Sweep over us, O Lord, with the realization of our mortality not to brood over death and the limitations of life but to discover how to begin to live life eternally now. For however long we live, our life is over like a sigh. Jesus knew He had come from God and was going to God. Help us to know it too and to get direction for what we do with our lives from this realization...what we do with our time, our talents, our money.

We thank you today, dear Lord, for the wonders and the joys of life. We are sorry for what we have done to the earth and to our physical bodies and to our fellow man to dull our sense of you and the vision of a wonderful world and our hope for eternity. We want to make a new beginning. May some word be said, some handicap given, some look of love, some movement of the Holy Spirit that will help us to see what we are, in order that we may be what Christ calls us to be and do.

So let this be a time of healing for our sickness, forgiveness for what we have done or failed to do, strength to bear the daily burden, light for the darkness, wisdom to make the right decision, and a renewal of love for each other within the Body of Christ.

That all of this is possible brings a shout of joy and praise through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

A Prayer for Forgiveness

Eternal God, Our Father, as we bow in prayer, may we turn toward Thee like a flower turns toward the sun. You have created us a little lower than the angels and crowned us with glory and honor. We are unfulfilled until we acknowledge our high creation and accept from you the forgiveness of our sins and begin to live a life of love and service. Yet we know we have tried to play God in our own lives. When we do, nothing turns out right. There is an aching void within. Our relationships turn sour and our daily work has little meaning and reward. We know it, yet we go on living this way.

Help me to believe that in this very moment your hand is stretched out to me in love - that no matter who I am and where I am or what I have done or how I feel, I am loved, loved by God, loved with an everlasting love. Help me to believe that when I am willing, that love will take me, forgive me, put a new song in my heart, transform my life and at last take the sting out of death and the victory out of the grave. Amen

A Prayer for Needy People

Eternal God, our Father, at this moment we are compelled to prayer. Break through the routine of it, the formality of it, the mere words - and make us to know the power of Your Presence.

We are needy people. We call on you Lord but we don't do the things that you have said. We say we love but we don't keep your commandments. The songs of faith are on our lips but our hearts do not sing. We play with our earthly toys as if they were all that mattered. We spend our money for that which is not bread and our labor for things that don't satisfy us. We use our time as if it were our own and as if there were no death and no eternity.

Break through, O Lord, break through, and let us see ourselves for what we are. Then we shall cry out for mercy. And you have promised that mercy will be given and grace to cover all our sins and to make us new in thought, word and deed.

What we ask for ourselves, we ask for all people. We ask especially for the country that we love. Cleanse our national policy. Prepare our chosen leaders for the task ahead and make them and us God fearing people. Keep alive our hope for peace and may we seek peace and pursue it. May we do more than remember those that died. May we seek to make their death the way to life for all people, for you made the death of your Son the way to life for all of us.

And now, Father, we wait for your blessing. Bless the Gospel and make it find its way to our bodies, minds and spirits, making us whole again and giving us the victory over sin and death.

We pray in the name that is above every name. Amen.

Prayer for a Distraught World

Eternal God, our Father, we gather before Thee in prayer to praise Thee and to make all our wants and wishes known. We thank Thee for Jesus'assurance that our heavenly Father knows our needs before we ask Him.

We confess our sins. We are selfish rather than unselfish and Christ centered. We provide our bodies with every need while our spirits grown lean and gaunt. We make war rather than peace. We demand justice for ourselves and deny it to others. We yearn for happiness but we find it not because we seek it in things which pass away. We remember how our Lord Jesus wept over Jerusalem crying, " How often would I have gathered you together as a hen gathers her chickens under her wing, but you would not. Would than even today you knew that things that make for peace." O Lord, make us ready to listen and to learn less our house be left to us desolate.

We lift up to Thee this distraught world and all who need Thee in some special and particular way. Help us all to be still and know the Lord is on our side. Knowing this, may we bear patiently our cross of grief or pain and leave to God to order and provide knowing that in every change He faithful will remain.

Pour down Thy Holy Spirit on us all and cause to grow in us the fruits of love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, kindness, and self control. And to Thee shall be the glory in Christ Jesus throughout all the ages, world without end. Amen

A Prayer for Those Searching

Eternal God, our Father, we bring ourselves, our souls and our bodies to you to dwell in these moments of quiet prayer. What can we ask for? For so often we do not know our true needs. But you know us. You have created us and not we ourselves. We are your people and the Bible is your word. The Holy Spirit is here and we cannot flee from it.

Our earnest prayer is not that you will be aware of us, but that you will make us aware of Thee, that you will search us and know us and see our wicked ways and lead us in the way everlasting. Open our eyes that we may see; open our ears that we may hear; open our mouths and help us declare gladly your warm truth everywhere. And open our hands to a needy world around us and beyond us and let us discover the secret life that is lived in behalf of others and in the hope of your coming kingdom.

Forgive what we have done that we ought not to have done and forgive what we have left undone that we ought to have done. Comfort those who mourn, we pray. Heal the sick in accordance with your will, your power, and your glory. Give strength to those who bear heavy burdens and light to those who walk in the darkness of indecision.

May your word conquer sinners, comfort saints and make the fruits of grace abound and bring relief from all complaints. We pray in the name of Him who gave Himself for us all.

A Prayer for the Weary

Eternal God, our Father, we come before you now after another week of living in the world. We have thought too little of You in this past week. We are mystified by the swirling current of events around us. We feel depleted in body, mind and spirit by so much coming and going. We have the haunting feeling that something is wrong, wrong with us and with our world. Yet, we go on, hoping somehow that everything will turn out all right. Bring it home to us that it won't turn out right until we turn to you.

Take off our masks, the masks we have worn so long in a vain effort to hide our true selves from others and even from ourselves. Help us to see through our excuses for not doing our duty to God and man, even as you have seen through them all the time. Take the load of guilt from us that we may be free again.

Lord Jesus, may we hear your gracious invitation once more, full of judgement and full of mercy, "Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest..."

And having dwelt with you may we:
"Go forth into the world in peace;
Be of good courage;
Hold fast that which is good;
Render to no man evil for evil;
Strengthen the faint-hearted;
Support the weak and help the afflicted;
Honor all men;
Love and serve the Lord,
rejoicing in the power of the Holy Spirit. :
We pray in the name of our Lord, Jesus Christ.

A Prayer of Comfort

Eternal God, our Father, we claim the promise of Jesus that when we gather in His name, He is in our midst. He promise not to leave us comfortless - that He will come to us. Without Thy presence, we sing and pray in vain; the scriptures fall on null ears; and preaching leaves us in our sin.

May we not be afraid to open all of our life to Thee. May we not be afraid to see ourselves as we really are. For what we are afraid of is that life has no more meaning than we know now, no more purpose, no brighter goal to live toward. Help us to see that Thou dost chasten us in order to redeem us. Thou dost convict us in order to forgive us. Thou dost show us the horror of our lives in order to give us a vision of the new life in fellowship with Thee and all men.

Make our hearts big enough to be concerned about people other than ourselves and those closest to us. Help us to see through our sinful rationalising about the poor and the oppressed and the way of war. Keep us, O Lord, from being satisfied with halfway measures to right the wrongs of the world for Thou hast gone all the way in the gift of Thine only son to make a new heaven and a new earth. May Thy love, so amazing, so divine, prompt us to give our souls, our life, our all.

We make our prayer to Thee, our Father, in the name of Christ to Thy honor and Glory.

A Prayer for Action

Eternal Father, as we once more come into your presence to pray, raise us from where we are in the depths of our sin and need, to the heights of worship where we can see Your power and Your glory. By the power of your gospel, may our eyes be delivered from tears, our feet from falling, and our souls from death.



We pray that the holy spirit will pierce the armor we have put on to keep the message of the gospel out. Show us the chaos of the world and the turmoil of our own lives until we see and believe that Christ is the answer to our problems day by day. And show us Christ himself until we shall see our need, not in the light of somebody else who may be weary and stained as we are but in His light in whose face your glory has shone. Make us able to say with one of your saints, "He hath a daily beauty in His life that makes me ugly." And, O Lord, reveal to us once more His cross. Forgive us that we have polished that cross in bright brass and placed it on the altar between the beautiful light of candles' flame and have forgotten that he died on the garbage heap outside the town between two thieves. Keep us near that cross in our living. Bring its scenes before us and help us to walk from day to day with its shadow over us.



As we pray for our troubled world, we pray for every troubled heart. Come and relieve us of the burden of guilt and bad habit; heal us of sickness of body and mind. Comfort us in our loneliness and sorrow. Become for us the bridge over troubled water. Then, O Lord, with the song of salvation on our lips and the reign of peace in our hearts once more, remind us that that we are saved to serve, that we shall lose our new life in Christ unless we share it with others in word and deed daily. And so, show us some more practical need in the world. Show us some job that needs to be done. Show us some class that needs to be taught. Show us some shattered love or friendship that needs reconciliation. Show us some forgotten one who needs to be loved and there let us take hold for His sake and give and give and give again what God has given us.



All this we ask in His name who love us and gave himself for us. Amen

A Prayer for Openess

Eternal God, our Father, make us ready to hear your voice. We become so accustomed to the loud noises and raucous voices of the world that we forget that you speak in whispers to the stillness of our hearts. We expect You to come in the pomp and power like the rulers of the world, but You come in the baby's cry and a crucifixion.





Oh, teach us that You are at work right now on our world and that truth may indeed seem to be on the scaffold and wrong on the throne, but the scaffold (Thy cross) sways the future and You are keeping watch over us and all that You have made.



May we this moment yield up our hearts to You for your blessing according to our need, for comfort in our mourning, for healing in our sickness, for strength in our weakness, for light in our darkness and for hope in our despair. To Thee we give the praise through Him who sent you. Amen

A Prayer of Service

Eternal God, our Father, we worship Thee whose name and nature is love. We dwell on Thy glory who has created all things, seen and unseen. We marvel at the changes, the expanse and the beauty of your world and the mysteries of our existence. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts! The whole earth is full of Thy glory! Glory be to Thee, O Lord most high!



Come to us in our need in this hour. Forgive our sins and make us clean again. Visit us with Thy salvation. Enter every troubled heart. Call us to Thy service. Awaken us from the sleep of selfish unconcern and lead us to take upon ourselves the yoke of Christ who took all of the world's sin upon Himself.



We pray for Your church near and far. Excite us with the privilege of representing the gospel to the passing multitude of men. As doors of opportunity open to us, may we enter before they are closed. May we hear Thee calling as you did call Isaiah: "Whom shall I send and who will go for us?" And give us the grace to answer as he answered: "Here am I Lord. Send me!"



These and all our prayer we make in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

Communion Prayer

Our Father, Father of us all, as simply as we know how, we bring our lives to Thee and the lives of others who need Thee too.



All of us are pilgrims in this way that brings so many surprises, so many mysteries. Why some are sick and others are well, we do not know. Why some are light hearted and others sad, why some die young and others live beyond the years of apparent usefulness, these things we do not know or understand.



But we know of Thy love and we do believe that all things work together for good to those who love the Lord. We bring our poor love love to Thine infinite love and we offer Thee the souls and bodies of those who need Thee, both here and in the multitude no man can number beyond our sight.



As we partake of communion, help us to give Thee back the life we owe, "that in thine ocean depths, its flow may richer fuller be." In the name of Him who came that we might have life and have it more abundantly. Amen

Prayer for a Troubled World

Eternal God, our Father, we come to You with our needy lives and our troubled world. To whom else can we go? You have created us. You know us better than we know ourselves. But we do not trust you enough and your love as we ought, so we still try to bear the burden of life and will not let it go. Yet, we know that in our trying, we become weaker and less able to endure. The adventure of living to which you call all of us in Christ fades away and we find ourselves lonely and afraid, O Lord. Help us to learn the lesson of your promise to us: "They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength..."

When we think of our world in its strife and bitterness, we know that you weep as your Son wept over Jerusalem: "O Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets and stonest them that are sent unto Thee..." You do weep over our strife and revolution at home and the war. Our own bitter reactions drive us farther from Thee and farther from each other. O Lord, help us today by your grace to become at least a center of peace in ourselves.

"Mid all the traffic of our ways, turmoils without, within,

Make in my heart a quiet place and come and dwell therein."

When we sincerely disagree, give us compassion and a seeking for understanding.

We pray for your servant, the President of the United States in his lonely hours of decision. We pray for the leaders of both church and state as they seek to bring order out of chaos. Save us and them from merely trying to preserve an old order when it is concerned mainly with self-preservation and fosters injustice to others. But as we seek a new order, save us from destroying the old which has been bought at the price of blood, sweat, and tears. Keep our minds and our ears open - open to You first of all - and open to the cries, often the voiceless cries, of people we meet everyday and those who cry out to us from afar for a better chance in life.

We thank thee especially that we have the opportunity to preach the gospel of salvation and peace and to foster it in our community and our world. May we rededicate ourselves to the great purposes and program to which you called us. Save us from pride in the victories that have been won. May the glory be Thine. And may our response be such that there will be a rebirth of love in the Holy Spirit among us and a new zeal to serve you and our fellow man. Amen

Prayers of Our Father

Dr. Francis T. Cunningham was born in Greenville, SC, in 1913. He graduated from Furman University with an undergraduate degree and from Candler School of Theology at Emory University with his divinity degree and began his pastorates. He was married to Mary Poole and they had four daughters. He received an honorary doctorate degree from Wofford College. He served as a minister for 41 years in the South Carolina Methodist Conference. Francis Cunningham died in 1974 at the age of 61 from cancer.

Our father's manner of life in the family upheld all he preached from the pulpit. He had our respect and admiration as a person of integrity. He was a gentle man, tender hearted, kind, upright and courageous. He was a very disciplined man and order and timeliness meant a lot to him. His sermons were full of examples from great literature and from the many books he had read. He especially loved poetry and used many poems in his sermons. He was a man of God.

Outside of church, Daddy loved a good cup of coffee, any kind of ice cream and a great game of golf with his friends. He and the love of his life, our Mother, had a home at Lake Junaluska, NC, and days there was so precious as his job took most of his other time.

We would like to share some of his prayers which meant so much to us and to his church members. He had a great gift of writing and these prayers show the sweetness of his soul.