PMC - Evening Prayers
By David Dawson

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The Westminster Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church USA (in the Pittsburgh area) has had a cluster of congregations engaged in the Partnership for Missional Church (PMC) for the past two years. For a recent cluster meeting David Dawson, the presbytery staff person who most directly interfaces with Church Innovations and these congregations, wrote the following introductory comments and prayer:

We have asked you to prepare for this cluster by observing a discipline of prayer for specific individuals and groups in your communities…those to whom God is sending you.

Conrad and Jannie (this cluster’s lead consultant and trainer) have been reminding us that it is easy to slip into generalizations. We speak of getting to know our “community.” This prevents us from thinking of real people. It is too vague. And it allows us to see people as objects of our charity…as “them.”

We know that God loves the world more than you and I do. God loves the world very specifically. God loves individuals…real people. We are learning to be sent to real people…specific people whom we do not know.

As we pray this evening I ask you to think within a quarter mile (4 blocks) of your church. Picture real people in that circle. You do not know their names, but you have seen their faces. As I lead us in prayer, please pray silently for those specific people to whom God is sending you.

Let us pray.

Lord, you know that we struggle with learning to love the world as you love the world. We know that loving the world will not come by improving our efforts or working harder; it will come as a gift of your Holy Spirit among us. So we offer these prayers, asking the Spirit to breathe into us and through us for the sake of Christ.

• Institutions and the people in them (fire departments, schools, businesses, residents, the powerful, the weak and the poor). Lord, hear our prayers.
• People annoyed by our presence (neighbors for whom we create parking issues, those who don’t like the carillon or the church bell, those who see us as a rich church, people who see our building as an impenetrable fortress). Lord, hear our prayers.
• People who see us as better or more religious than they (those burdened with guilt, those turned-off by religion and how Christians act, those who see us as hypocrites, those who see us as unapproachable). Lord, hear our prayers.
• People who are friendly but distant (those who use us for weddings and funerals, those who have been served by us at food banks, those who want to borrow tables and chairs from us). Lord, hear our prayers.

Loving God, most of us have lived in the faith all our lives. We were nurtured by our parents and grandparents and many generations before. We thank you for that…we thank you for those who have gone before us and have told us the story of Jesus.

But we are reminded that somewhere, sometime, a follower of Christ crossed boundaries to tell the story of Jesus to our ancestors…our tribe. We thank you that those great saints of the church understood that they were called to be sent…and they went…and our forbearers heard the Gospel and believed…and so the Good News was passed on to us.

May we always remember how important it is to that we are your sent people. In the name of Jesus Christ we pray. Amen.

David Dawson is with the Westminster Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church USA (in the Pittsburgh area). The Presbytery has had a cluster of congregations engaged in Partnership for Missional Church (PMC) for the past two years.