21st Century Africana Worship Resources for the Fifth Sunday After the Epiphany, Year B

Gathering Meditation
Lord, here we stand
with the whole city gathered at our door (Mark 1:32)
waiting for our Sunday celebrations to end,
hoping that we will notice
that there is a community outside these walls
longing for healing, help, and hope.
As we rise from our knees,
help us to worship and work with our eyes open.
As we walk through these doors,
remove the blinders from our hearts
so that we might love and feel and even ache with our neighbors.
When tomorrow comes,
let worship continue to flow through our hands ?? testifying to your love and greatness. Amen.

Call to Worship
One Voice: They who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength.

Many Voices: Lord, we wait patiently in your presence.

One Voice: They who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength

Many Voices: God gives power to the faint and strength to those without power.

One Voice: Lift us up.

Many Voices: Lift us up!

One Voice: Make us strong.

Many Voices: Make us strong!

One Voice: Help us walk.

Many Voices: Help us run! Make us fly!

All Voices: They who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. Lord, we come to wait in your presence.

Prayer of Confession:
Lord, today we confess that we often live as those who have never heard of you. We plan and strategize as though the outcome depended solely upon us. We worry and fret like those who have no advocate.

Forgive us Lord,
for the scheming and conniving we do to make sure that we have our own way.

Forgive us Lord,
for grasping at power when you are the Power,
for seeking glory when all glory belongs to you,
for not leaning upon you when we feel weak, or powerless, or alone.
Forgive us Lord,
for relying upon ourselves and other mortals when we should turn to you.

Teach us how to live more like those who belong to you and less like those who belong to the world.

(silence)

Hear some good news! The prophet Isaiah says this: "Even youths will faint and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted; but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint" (Isaiah 40:30-31). People of God, trust in the Lord and be strengthened!

People to one another:
Trust in the Lord and be strengthened!

AMEN.

About the Author:: Safiyah Fosua is a former staff member of Discipleship Ministries.