Sunday, February 6, 2011

Prayer of Blessing on the Ministry of Sarah Holik

(On January 23, 2011 Sarah Holik, Children's Minister at FBC Fitzgerald, GA, was ordained to the ministry at Parkway Baptist Church in Duluth, her home church during her seminary years. Today, February 6, 2011, Rev. Holik preached in our morning worship service and at the end of the service her new home church family gathered around her to bless her in her ministry. This is the text of the prayer I prayed.]

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

O God who calls all your people into your service and who equips all your people for the service into which you call us, we praise you today for your beloved child and your chosen servant Sarah Holik, for the particular life you have given her, and for the particular ministry into which you have called her and for which you have equipped her, are equipping her, and will equip her.

We praise you for the blessing that is ours to share as Sarah’s family of faith in her life, in her call, in her service, and in her ministry. Inspire us to take full advantage of the opportunity to walk alongside her in discipleship, in fellowship, and in ministry. Help us to learn from each other—she from us and we from her—as together we follow you.

Since Sarah is a minister of the good news of Jesus Christ our Lord, form her steadily and surely through all the events of her life and through all the seasons of her ministry into a minister whose life and ministry reflect the love, hope, peace, joy, and service of our Lord Jesus Christ. Grant her grace—grace in loss and in gain, grace in failure and in success, grace in sorrow and in joy, grace in solitude and in community, grace in being and in doing, grace in listening and in speaking, grace in forgiving and in being forgiven, grace in losing and in gaining, and grace in dying and in living.

Lord God, bless the ministry of Sarah Holik right here and right now and in all the places and times that will come.

Amen.

No comments: