Please join us in offering these special prayers for Christmas, written by Martyn Payne, BRF volunteer and prayer advocate.
You can use them with your church, for Sunday intercessions, with your family and friends or however suits you best.
Christmas God,
who, before the world began,
planned to come to us in Jesus,
we celebrate your gracious gift of love
wrapped as a baby, and lying in a manger.
Help us to treasure this eternal present
by daily welcoming your abiding presence
into all our living, from this moment on.
May we, like the Christ Child, grow up
into fullness of life with you.
Amen
Christmas God,
who became helpless, to help us;
who became weak, to strengthen us;
who became poor, to enrich us;
and who became empty, to fill us;
we invite you into our broken lives
to rescue, restore, and renew us
as your beloved children,
through the One, who makes all things new.
Amen
Bethlehem God,
whose first coming was surrounded
by suspicion and shame, and by death and dying,
draw near this Christmas to all those
who are caught up in the terrors and horrors of war.
Inspire all who are working for peace and reconciliation,
and who long for the day when all will come
to taste God’s gift of Living Bread,
from Bethlehem, the House of Bread,
the birthplace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen
God who now is with us,
we kneel before you this day,
amid the straw, sawdust and splinters
of our imperfect lives,
to welcome the Christ-child
as our Lord and King.
May his life renew and redirect us
into the ways of love, peace and forgiveness,
because, in Christ, it is now ‘us with God’
from this day and forever more. Amen
