CALL TO WORSHIP
Psalm 145

MUSIC
Curated by Nathan Gutzmann
Hillsong Worship - Who You Say I Am
Leeland - Way Maker
Hillsong United - Whole Heart

ANCIENT PRAYER
Introduction by Bobbi Salkeld. Prayer by Thomas Merton “The Unity of Friends” .

The Christian tradition includes thousands and thousands of prayers that inspire our faith and help us to grow. Praying the prayers of the saints of the past and contemplatives of our day can be a sustaining spiritual exercise. 

Today I invite you into a prayer of Thomas Merton called “The Unity of Friends.” Thomas Merton was an American Trappist monk, an activist, and a poet. One of the tensions in Merton’s life was between solitude and living in community. 

As we pray, I encourage you to bring to mind a friendship that is near to you. 
Let us pray along with Thomas Merton. 

O God, we are one with you. 
You have made us one with you. 
You have taught us that if we are open to one another, you dwell with us. 
Help us to preserve this openness and to fight for it with all our hearts. 
Help us to realize that there can be no understanding where there is mutual rejection. 
O God, in accepting one another wholeheartedly, fully, completely, 
we accept you, and we thank you, and we adore you, 
and we love you with our whole being, 
because our being is in your being, our spirit is rooted in your spirt. 
Fill us then with love, and let us be bound together with love as we go our diverse ways, 
united in this one spirit which makes you present in the world,
and which makes you witness to the ultimate reality that is love. 
Love has overcome. 
Love is victorious. 
Amen.