National Lutheran Schools Week
4 – 10 May 2009
Lutheran schools around Australia,
sustained by God’s presence and love,
join together to celebrate:
• inspiring hearts, hands and generosity of spirit
• living out the gospel call to justice
• making a difference through action and response
Call to worship
We come into your presence, God:
Each special in a different way
Each uniquely seeing, experiencing, defining the world in different
ways.
We gather here in the light of Christ,
Jesus, who gives us the hand of fellowship,
Jesus, who reaches out and touches us,
Jesus, who invites us to touch the lives of others.
We come today as Lutheran schools around Australia gathered to
celebrate; let us worship God.
Song
Candle lighting (each reader lights a candle)
Reader 1:
800 million people in our world are so poor that they do not have enough to eat.
Reader 2:
A child born in a developing country is 13 times more likely to die within the first
five years of life than a child in an industrialised nation.
Reader 3:
In Sub-Sahara Africa, around 38 million children are unable to go to school; in
Asia, 18 million are not enrolled in school.
Reader 4:
Increasing populations place great strain on fragile environments; the
governments of developing countries are often already strained and
impoverished, and struggle to meet their people’s needs for health,
education and nutrition.
Leader: While we remain silent in the face of such suffering by our neighbours
in the global community, the candles of hope are extinguished.
Lament of the people (said with masks held to
face)
Voice 1
Stories of pain and suffering abound.
Lives are devastated, spirits are crushed.
The voices are heard crying in the land.
Voice 2
A sound is hear in Ramah,
the sound of bitter weeping.
Rachel is crying for her children;
She refuses to be comforted, for they are dead.
(Matthew 2:18)
Voice 3
Is there no-one who can help us?
Is there no-one who will care?
Are we to be alone and desolate, desperate in our agony?
Will no-one hear and come?
Voice 4
God said, “I will send my messenger ahead of you, to open the
way for you.”
Someone is shouting in the desert, “Get the road ready for the
Lord, and make a straight path for him to travel.” (Matthew
1:2,3)
Song
Prayer of hope (responsively)
Jesus came into the world as a light in the darkness
and the darkness could not put it out.
He entered into the lives of the people
and became one with them in their joys, their pain and their sorrows.
Through his death and his resurrection, hope entered into the world.
Thanks and praise be to God.
The flame of hope continues to burn in the darkness,
bringing hope where there is decay and despair, pain and agony.
May its glow enter the hearts of people caught in this suffering.
Sending forth its light of hope into all of life.
Fill us, loving God, fill us with your Spirit.
Silence as the Christ candle, the candle of hope, is lit.
Hearing the word; thinking about the word
Song
Prayer
Voice 1
Children are our dreams, our future
When they suffer, are in pain, are no more
Then we suffer, are in pain are no more.
(Sung response – student or staff choir)
May we see Christ’s loving face,
May we be an icon of his grace.
Voice 2
We know that Jesus is coming again,
into our grief-stricken world.
The hope he brings is to be shared, as he shared his life.
May we see Christ’s loving face,
May we be an icon of his grace.
Voice 3
But sometimes our ears are deaf, our eyes are blind,
our hands and feet are tied, and we prefer to hide from the truth,
from facts and figures and stories that tell of human suffering.
May we see Christ’s loving face,
May we be an icon of his grace.
Voice 4
The flame of hope burns brightly in our midst,
Calling us to be bearers of hope to those who suffer,
Those who are outcasts in today’s world.
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May we see Christ’s loving face,
May we be an icon of his grace.
Leader:
We answer the call, and in response we re-light the four candles, which
symbolise:
(mask on) our confessing – (mask off) to follow truly the way of Jesus;
(silence, light first candle)
(mask on) our courage – (mask off) to be bearers of hope
(silence, light second candle)
(mask on) our compassion – (mask off) for those who suffer
(silence, light third candle)
(mask on) our commitment – (mask off) to the world, and the people of the
world
(silence, light fourth candle)
May we see Christ’s loving face,
May we be an icon of his grace.
Prayer (music plays softly in background)
Loving God
We pray for all who are isolated, exploited, endangered. Affirm their
worth, their dignity, their preciousness to you and to others. Help us
to know what is possible for us, and give us the courage and the
energy to take a first step, no matter how small. Watch over us and
guide us to make this world, the only one we have, a better place.
Loving God
We pray for our whole school community. Strengthen our efforts to
become thoughtful and caring, reaching out and sharing ourselves
with our global neighbours. Strengthen our determination, whatever
loss or inconvenience is needed to put things right.
Loving God
We pray for communities of Lutheran schools and regional offices
throughout Australia, that together we live out the gospel call to
justice.
Loving God
Hear and answer our prayers. We ask this through Jesus Christ our
Lord.
Amen.
Sending and symbolic action
These ribbons are symbols of God’s grace to you.
I invite you to take one and hang it on the tree (or wear
it) as a symbol of God’s grace flowing to others.
May the hope which came with the babe in Bethlehem be
the beginning of hope for all people.
May we help to make it so.
May our words and actions bring hope to all people.
Amen.
Song (optional)