Liturgy

These litanies, confession statements & liturgy were written by a variety of Christian servants – please use and reproduce as you wish, we only ask that they are not sold in any way, shape or form for profit.

Confess that We Do Not Confess

Colossians 2: 1-7 – Confession

Leader: We confess, O God, that we do not confess. Have mercy on us, and in this holy evening, under the umbrella of your forgiving love, give us the courage to confess our sin. “For I want you to know how much I am struggling for you, and for those in Laodicea, and for all who have not seen me face to face.”

All: Shining, surprising, grace-full God, for avoiding the searchlight of your desire for us and running away from your love. Forgive us!

Leader: “I want their hearts to be encouraged and united in love, so that they may have all the riches of assured understanding and have the knowledge of God’s mystery, that is, Christ himself, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”

All: For preferring the safe, familiar, and certain to the risky, unknown, and mysterious or taking no delight in variety and insisting on sameness and conformity. Forgive us!

Leader: “I am saying this so that no one may deceive you with plausible arguments.”

All: For fearing those different from ourselves, and projecting onto them what we cannot accept within our own depths. For failing to believe in the vulnerability of power and the power of vulnerability. Forgive us!

Leader: “For though I am absent in body, yet I am with you in spirit, and I rejoice to see your morale and the firmness of your faith in Christ.”

All: For assuming we are superior to the rest of creation, for abusing, despoiling, and failing to celebrate our relationship with the earth and the web of life. For not noticing your presence in darkness as in light, in body as in spirit, in feeling as in intellect, in pain as in healing, in Good Friday as in Easter Day. Forgive us!

Leader: “As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, continue to live your lives in him”

All: For taking you for granted, turning to you only when we’re in trouble, and when we do call your name, expecting an instant magical solution. Set us free, we pray, to be whole human beings and to live our lives graciously and without fear.

Leader: “rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.” Let us hear how our deepest hungers, desires, and aspirations can be fulfilled by your goodness and in your service.Let us hear how our worries about the future, and about each other,and about ourselves, can find rest in your providential care. Let us hear how our confessed shame for wrong things done and for good things left undone is covered by your forgiveness.

All: Let us hear how our honest thanks relate us, not only to those with whom we live, but also to you, the Lord and Giver of life.

Leader: When we were dead in our sins, God made us alive by forgiving all our sin – erasing the record that stood against us…by nailing it to the cross. The good news therefore is this: In Jesus Christ we are forgiven.

All: Thanks be to God!

Confession of Burdens

Leader: God we confess to you…

Men: The hardness of our hearts.

Women: And that we choose to listen to our own voices instead of Yours.

Leader: God we confess to you…

Women: All the times that we try and hide from you.

Men: In the hurriedness of our schedules & lives

Women: Under desks and blankets.

Leader: And behind fake smiles and saying “I’m ok”

Leader: God we confess to you…

Men: The times that we run away or think we know better than you

Women: The times that we refuse to speak the words of mercy and grace that you give us to.

Leader: God we confess to you…

Women: We are weary of carrying these burdens

Men: And the need to prove ourselves to you.

Leader: Forgive us for the idols we have created.

Leader: God we are a people desperate to believe your promise. So today we boldly ask you to remind us …

Men: That there is no where we can flee from Your Spirit.

Women: That whether we go up to the heavens or make our bed in the depths, that you are there.

Leader: That our souls may find rest in You alone O God.

Women: That we can pour out our hearts to You.

Men: That You alone are our refuge Jesus.

Leader: God may we no longer hide ourselves from You but find ourselves hidden in You.

Confessions – I am

Leader: We hear the words that Paul wrote to the church in Rome and know that it is true of us today.

All: I am…

Leader: filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity.

All: I am…

Leader: filled with envy, murder, strife, deceit and m alice.

All: I am…
Leader: I am a gossip, slanderer, God-hater, insolent, arrogant and boastful.

All: I am …

Leader: someone who invents new ways of doing evil, disobeys their parents, senseless, faithless, heartless and ruthless.

All: We know God’s righteous decree and know that those who do such things deserve death. However, we not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.

Confession -Moral Inventory

Leader: Jesus, tonight we come before you a broken and misshaped people. People thinking that we know everything and have it all together.
All: A people who would rather be the head than the thumb, liver, kidney, or arm that you have created us to be.

Leader: God, tonight we beg you to forgive the resentments and grudges we hold against others. For the people who have hurt us that we have been unable to forgive.

(silence)

Leader: Lord in your mercy,
All: Hear our prayer.

Leader: For the selfish things we do and the ways that we have put ourselves at the center of our universe, putting ourself first in every situation….instead of you and your children.

(silence)

Leader, Lord in your mercy,

All: Hear our prayer.

Leader: Spirit, convict us of our own dishonesty and the secrets that we harbor.

(silence)

Leader: Lord in your mercy,
All: Hear our prayer

Leader: God, you say that perfect love casts out fear, and that fear really has to do with punishment. Tonight, we our unable to even give voice to the things that are buried so deeply inside of us. We pray that you would take those from us tonight because we don’t have the strength to give them to you.

(Silence)
Leader: Lord in your mercy,
All: Hear our prayer.

Leader: Jesus. We pray tonight that you would prompt us to action, for the amends and apologies that will bring healing.

(Silence)

Leader: Lord in your mercy,
All: Hear our prayer.

Leader: God…we confess that we have missed the mark. That we are sinners. That we struggle with kindness and loving others, that we have so many areas that we could be better and that we don’t always remember that life is worth living because of what you have done for us. Stir up inside of us yet again Spirit. Bring light into the darkness and life out of death.

(Silence)

Leader: Lord in your mercy,
All: Hear our prayer.

Leader: Forgive us for Jesus sake.
All: Amen

Confession -Show us our sin

Leader: God we come before you, not even recognizing our sin, if you had not shown us.

All: And that is our plea now Jesus. That you would show us our sin so that we would see our even greater need for you. Then please, we beg you, speak your healing over us.

(silence)

Leader: God we confess…

Men: That we are selfish and self centered.

Women: That we take Your story, what You are doing, and we make Your story all about ‘me.’

Leader: God we confess…

Women: That we would rather twist your Word

Men: Rather than wrestle with the difficult things that You are saying to us.

Leader: God we confess…

Men: That we look for the quick fixes and easy solutions in our lives.

Women: Instead of bringing all of our cares, worries and concerns directly to You.

Leader: God we confess…

All: That we are a people who have lost hope, focus, and would rather do things ourselves than be in a relationship with You. We beg for Your forgiveness and that You would not take Your Spirit from us.

Leader: God, we plead with you..

All: That You would cleanse us from all sin and unrighteousness. That You would open our eyes so that we could see that we are a part of Your story because You have called us your children. And that you would lead us into all truth.

Confession – Advent

Silence for Confession

Leader: We confess…

All: that we see ourselves in the story of the beggars who have come before.

Leader: We read in Scripture that… ‘In those days–Israel had no king; everyone did as they saw fit.’

All: We confess that we live our lives the same way–not wanting to acknowledge Jesus as King or not living like it’s true.

Leader: We confess…

All: that we often do not bother to listen for Your voice or want to ascribe authority to You.

Leader: Forgive us God…

All: For being more concerned with looking for signs than what the signs are pointing to.

Confession – Corporate

Leader: The Lord be with you.

All: And also with you.
L: Most holy and merciful God,
All: We confess to you and to one another and before the whole company of heaven that we have sinned by our fault, by our own fault, by our own most grievous fault, in thought word and deed by what we have done and by what we have left undone.

L: We have not loved you with our whole heart, and mind, and strength. We have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We have not forgiven others as we have been forgiven.

All: Have mercy on us, O God.

L: We have shut our ears to your call to serve as Christ served us. We have not been true to the mind of Christ. We have grieved your Holy Spirit.

All: Have mercy on us O God.

L: Our past unfaithfulness, the pride, envy, hypocrisy, and apathy that have infected our lives, we confess to you.

All: Have mercy on us O God.

L: Our self indulgent appetites and ways, and our exploitation of other people, we confess to you.

All: Have mercy on us O God.

L: Our negligence in prayer and worship, and our failure to share the faith that is in us, we confess to you.

All: Have mercy on us O God.

L: Our neglect of human need and suffering, and our indifference to injustice and cruelty, we confess to you.

All: Have mercy on us O God.

L: Our false judgements, our uncharitable thoughts toward our neighbors, and our prejudice and contempt towards those who differ from us, we confess to you.

All: Have mercy on us O God.

L: Our waste and polution of your creation, and our lack of concern for those who come after us, we confess to you

All: Have mercy on us O God.

L: Restore us, O God, and let your anger depart from us.

All: Hear us O God, for your mercy is great.

L: Accomplish in us O God the work of your salvation,

All: That we may show forth your glory in the world.

L: By the cross and passion of your Son, our Savior,

All: Bring us with all your saints to the joy of his resurrection.

Confession -Lent

leader: The Lord be with you.
all: And also with you.
leader: We cry out Hosanna to the king of kings.

all: HOSANNA!

leader: We cry out to the Lord to save.

all: HOSANNA!

leader: We cry out for restoration.

all: HOSANNA!

leader: John writes, “If we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. But when we confess our sins, God who is faithful and just will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

all: LORD SAVE US.

leader: People of God, we come before God and one another bent on our knees and in our hearts confessing our sin to the one who makes all things right. Kneel, bow, lie prostrate before the Christ knowing that he who forgives the sins of all will forgive your sins and make you new.
(we kneel, bow, lie prostrate)

Confession -Maundy Thursday

A time of silence as we enter into confession

Leader: In the name of Jesus, we confess…

All: That we are trapped in our own sin. And we cannot free ourselves.
Leader: We have chosen…

All: Anger over joy, violence over peace, and pain over love.

Leader: We have chosen…

All: Knowledge over faith, certainty over doubt, and security over trust in your unfailing love.
Leader: We have chosen…

All: to walk our own path, to satisfy our own needs, and to humiliate those in our way.

Leader: By our own fault…

All: our neighbors are hungry, suffering, dying, and without hope.
Leader: By our own fault…

All: families are torn apart and hearts are left empty.

Leader: By our own fault…

All: the world that you created is being crucified.
Leader: Our lives are broken…

All: by the sin of those around us and by the sin that lives in our hearts.

Leader: In your unending mercy and grace…

All: have mercy on us.
Leader: Forgive us in the name of your Son Jesus Christ…

All: who boldly took on death that we might have life.

Leader: We confess…
All: in the name of Jesus.

Amen

Confession -Of an American

Holy God, you are our king, yet our allegiances can be divided.

You ask us to gather in the poor,

the needy, the distressed,

the persecuted, the huddled masses yearning to be free,

but we have selfishly wanted our own way and rejected those you have called us to serve.

You have called us to declare a season of justice, to be a nation that is conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that ALL people are created equal,

yet we declare a tyranny of the majority, settling for our way instead of your way.

You call us to protect the outcast, the lost, and the forsaken, yet we continue to ignore them by our actions and our policies.

Forgive us God, we are easily swayed. With shaking hearts we ask, “Your Kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as in heaven.”

AMEN.

Confession -Of Burying

If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. But if we confess our sin, God who is faithful and just will fogive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
– 1John 1:8-9

we kneel

Leader: We have hidden our sin from you. We have kept silent. We have groaned under the weight of your hand.

All: Have mercy on us.

Leader: When we pretend not to see you at work,

All: we bury our sin.

Leader: When we neglect the other,

All: we bury our sin.

Leader: When we hide our true selves,

All: we bury our sin.

Leader: When we run from truth,

All: We bury our sin.

Leader: When we turn away from what we are called to see,

All: we bury our sin.

Leader: When we seek value in what we earn,

All: we bury our sin.

Leader: We acknowledge our sin to you,

All: We uncover our iniquity.
Leader: We confess our transgressions

All: And you forgive the guilt of our sin.

Leader: Rejoice and be glad, you righteous,
ALL: SING! All you upright of heart!

Confession of Cloaks

leader: Let us confess our sin before the king and one another.
we kneel

leader: we confess that we come before you coveting your crown.

all: Lord save us!

leader: we confess that we spread our cloaks on the way of control, of being in charge, of being our own master.

all: Lord, save us!

leader: we confess we spread our cloaks on the way of desire, the way of wanting things for ourselves, for our wandering eyes
all: Lord, save us!

leader: we confess that we have sought our own way and not yours, we have not bowed to you, our king.

all: Forgive us our sin.

leader: Jesus, our king, save us from ourselves!
all: Come be our king!

leader: Lord save us!

all: Lord save us!

Confession of Comfort

All: Holy God, we confess to you

that we have coveted comfort

at the risk of your mission.
Women: We have sought the places where we feel safe at the cost of the places you have called us to live and serve.
Men: We have hidden ourselves behind

the usual, the normal, the ordinary.
Women: We have holed ourselves in our homes, our workplaces, and our church

All: Forgive us God for the sin of comfort,

for settling for the usual when we are called to live the unusual;

Men: for being satisfied with the ordinary when we are called to the extraordinary.
Women: for seeking normal when our walk is to be anything but.
All: Through your Spirit, make us new.

Transfigure us into your image

and call us into the fullness of life you desire for your whole creation.

Confession of Denial

Leader: Holy God, Holy and Mighty, Holy and Immortal.

all: Have mercy on us.

leader:
Let us come before God and one another, laying our sin before the altar with the desire to be made clean.

*silence*

leader: Most merciful God,

all: We confess that we deny you.

men: We know your words,

we know your law,

we know your justice,

yet we deny you.

women: We know your face,

we know your heart,

we know your vision for a new world,

yet we deny you.

men: we deny you by what we do.

women: we deny you by what we do not do.

all: For Jesus’ sake, forgive us.

Show us your mercy and grant us peace.

Amen.

leader: I bring you good news-

your heavenly Father knows your sin no more.

It is forgotten. It is done.

You are forgiven through the death and life of Jesus.

Come let us worship with new hearts.

All: AMEN!

Confession of Dust

leader: We are dust

all: and to dust we will return.

leader: let us come before God in our dusty bodies, confessing our need to wake up.
…silence…

leader: we have become dusty,

all: holding still for too long.
leader: we are covered in dust

all: from standing when we could be walking.

leader: we are covered in dust

all: dust of all the stuff we have done

and stuff we should not do.

leader: we come to shake the dust

to shake off that which covers us,

our apathy, our reluctance, our pitiful fear that perhaps we are actually more than we seem.

all: sweep us clean and we will be clean.

shake us and we will be fresh.

wipe off everything that covers us so that we can be new again.

leader: but it doesn’t end there

all: true. so very true.

leader: then wake us up, get us up, shake us off that we can shake the tree of this world. Give us courage to believe a better way.

all: I believe in a better way.

leader: we are dust

all: and to dust we will return

leader: but we are also so much more.

all: we believe. AMEN.

Confession of Enemies

Silence

Holy God, holy and mighty,

Holy and immortal

have mercy on us.

For we give to others what we believe they deserve,

we hold others accountable to our own measure,

we rule as if we are the rule.

God, we have enemies,

and for this we are ashamed.

We have lived for revenge.

We have struck out with words and action,

by witholding words and inaction.

God, may we not reap what we sow.

God, may we not be judged as we have been judged.

Have mercy on us, sinners in your hand.

Teach us to be just, O Justice.

Teach us to forgive, you who are Forgiveness.

Teach us to love you who is LOVE.

You were, you are, and you are coming.

Judge us with mercy.

AMEN.

Confession – Ephesians 4

L: Let us come before God

confessing our lack, our loss, and our need to be redeemed
silence

L: Most merciful God:
C: We confess that we are in bondage to sin and cannot free ourselves.

C: We have turned deaf ears to your call to join in your mission.

We have neglected the gifts you have bestowed upon us and buried them like talents in the ground.

C: While you have sent us,

we have waited for others to go in our place.

silence

C: In your compassion, forgive us our sins.

Call us again,

we will come.

Equip us with the power of your Spirit.

Send us out that we may be your hands and feet in the world.

To you be the glory.

AMEN

Confession of Evenings

L: As evening closes in, we are reminded by the setting sun what God has done this day. We celebrate the joy of life, laughter, and service. We also grieve that which we have done and left undone. Let us confess to God, our light in the darkness, that our hope may be resurrected as surely as the sun will rise tomorrow.

Silence

L: Most merciful God…

All: We confess to you, our God and creator, source of light and life, that we have chosen the ways of darkness.

We have not loved you with a whole heart.

We have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.

Shine your light again, that by the gift of grace through your Son Jesus, we may not be bound by our sin but may be free to live wholly in you.

To you be all glory and honor, now and forever. AMEN.

Confession of Falling

Leader: We come before you God as a prideful broken people. A people who are so often propped up by the things of this world instead of you and you alone.
All: Lord, we are ready to fall.

Leader: We confess that we prop ourselves up with our money, our own efforts to succeed, and our attempts to keep our brokenness hidden.
All: And we are ready to fall.

L: We confess that we are weak in body, mind, and spirit and we do not turn to you.
All: Lord, we are ready to fall.

L: We confess that we choose not to hear and see you. We choose to let our brokenness direct our lives.
All: Lord, we are ready to fall.

L: We confess that we also choose to keep ourselves closed up to you and to those around us.
All: Lord, we are ready to fall.

L: We confess that we allow anger and guilt to bind us up instead of being bound together in you.
All: Lord, we are ready to fall.

L: Lord we want our longings to lay open to you, we do not want to hide our sighing any longer.
All: O Lord, our Saviour, we are ready to fall.

Catch us.

Confession of Fear

Leader: O God, we confess we are afraid

All: of following where you lead,
of doing what you ask of us,
of living our faith out loud.

Leader: We are afraid
All: of making the wrong decision,

of going the wrong way,

of trusting there is a path set before us

Leader: We are afraid

All: of letting go of the things that weigh us down,
of holding on to things that we do not understand

Leader: We are afraid
All: of loving the stranger,

of giving of our things to another,

of inviting the different into our lives.

Leader: Give us peace, Lord God.
All: That we may have courage to love as we have been loved,

to share what has been shared,

to change what needs to be changed.

Leader: Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world,
All: Have mercy on us.

Confession of Heretics

Leader: We say together

All: This is our confession as Heretics

Women: We confess that we are so easily swayed and captured by false ideas.
Men: We choose to believe the most gifted speakers, rather than the humble truths spoken quietly.

Women: We would rather get caught up with passion and emotion, than be on guard for deception.
Men: We would rather uplift our own rationality and reason, than trust in Your Spirit to move us.

Women: We are too scared to conflict with those we love. We have lost our ability to fight, and fight well.
Men: We prefer to accept things on our own. To come to conclusions by ourselves or to seek affirmation from flatterers.

All: We confess that we trust so little in your ability to restore the things that are broken. Lord we cry out, make us aliens no more, make peace with us, your enemies.

Confession of Love

all: Holy God, we confess that we have loved.

leader: we have loved

all: ourselves. Above all, ourselves.

leader: we have loved,

all: ourselves more than our neighbors, our enemies, the stranger, the widow, the orphan, the poor.

leader: we have loved

all: our stuff, our trinkets, our luxuries at the expense of the tiny hands making them.

leader: we have loved

all: our time, our precious moments, giving them away to things that do not last, on trivial things at the expense of those things that deserve my attention.

leader: we have loved

all: ourselves more than you. The one thing you want and we withhold it and demand a prize for our attention. It’s the one thing you want and we wait for you to prove it’s worth it.

leader: forgive us.

all: we are fools.
leader: forgive us.

all: we know not what we do.

leader: forgive us then teach and inspire us

all: to love you so much we cannot help but love others,

to love you so much, we cannot wait to serve others.

leader: in the mercy of your holy name we pray.

all: amen.

Confession of Me

Leader: God we confess to you that we are a people that keep coming back to this parable hoping for the message to change.

All: Because we like the stuff that we can earn so this is a Sunday we would rather not be here to hear what You’re saying to us.

Leader: We want what’s due to us. We want fairness & equality.

All: And we want it now. We want what benefits us.

Leader: We are like the little kid yelling:

All: “Mine, mine, mine.”

Leader: We don’t want the last to be first.

All: We think that we deserve to be first.

Leader: We confess that we desire this grace, mercy and love from You.

All: But would turn around and deny it to our neighbor, our friends and our enemies in the same breath.

Leader: God this is a confession of self.

All: A confession of ‘me.’

Leader: We confess that we are envious of your generosity.

All: We want it for ourselves but not for others.

Leader: God we confess to you that in life we are self centered

All: And we measure everything in view of what’s best for “me.”

Leader: But if we’re really honest, we confess that we feel guilty.

All: Because we are like the workers at the end of the day who get paid the same even though we only work a few hours.

Leader: That guilt eats at us.

All: Because we assume that you made a mistake if You let us in the kingdom. Choosing to love us has to be a mistake

Confession of our Need for Resurrection

L: Holy God, we confess…

All: That we look for darkness in the midst of your light.

All: That we fail to see the good in one another.

That we focus on falling rather than rising.

L: Risen Lord, we confess…

All: That you deserve our attention.

Attention to your rising.

Attention to your resurrected Son.

L: Forgiving God…

All: Come and redirect our eyes away from sin and death and help us to see the way of resurrection.

Amen.

Confession of Promises

If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. But if we confess our sin, God who is faithful and just will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
– 1John 1:8-9

Leader: God we confess that we ask you to remember your promises

All: And we forget the promises that we have made to you.
Leader: God we confess that we forget
All: Where our true identity comes from.

Leader: God we confess that we try and make your story all about us.

All: Please forgive us for forgetting that you have invited us to be a part of your story.

Leader: Forgive us for trying to carry our own burdens

All: Instead of allowing you to carry them for us.

Leader: Please forgive us for trying to live out of our own power and strength.
All: Instead of living out of the abundance of your grace and mercy.

Leader: Forgive us for listening to all the other voices in the world

All: Instead of listening to your voice that says “I love you.”

Confession of Settling:

Leader: God of all, we confess we have settled.

We have settled for the easy way,

the simple profit, the comfort of ease.

All: We have settled for luxury at the sacrifice of dignity. We have settled for what is rather than what can be.

Leader: We have settled for the complexity of living rather than the simplicity of living in you.

All: We have settled for cowardly reason

at the sacrifice of trust.

Leader: Forgive us God, for our cynicism.

Forgive us God, for our shortsightedness.

All: Forgive us God, for believing the lie

that nothing can changed,

that we cannot make a difference,

that we don’t matter in the world.

All: Forgive us, change us, and lead us

that we may delight in your will

and walk in your ways.

To the glory of your name, we say.

AMEN.

Confession of Shame:

Leader: We hear the words that Paul wrote and know that it is true of us today.

All: I am…
Leader: filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity.

All: I am…
Leader: filled with envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice.

All: I am…

Leader: a gossip, a slanderer, a God-hater, insolent, arrogant and boastful.

All: I am …
Leader: someone who invents new ways of doing evil, disobeys their parents, is senseless, faithless, heartless and ruthless.

All: We know God’s righteous decree and know that we fall short. We are broken and we hold this brokeness over our heads as if we can do something about it.

Have mercy.

Confession of Silences

leader: WE come before God, silently,

confessing our need for change. Ponder with me the ways we have fallen short of who God made us to be.

…silence…

Most merciful God…

all: God, we confess before you that we have failed to do what you have called.

men: We have spoken when we should have been silent,

women: We held our tongues when we should have spoken.

leader: We are called to care for one another,

to be pastor to our neighbor,

and we have failed.

All: Pour out your Spirit on us once again,
men: ignite in us a courage to speak and remain silent,
women: to cry out and to cherish peace.

all: Help us to remain in the silences,

listening to your word,
growing in your will,
living to serve you.
We trust in your forgiving Word. AMEN.

Confession of Suffering

Holy God,

we confess we seek the easy way

the way of comfort,

the way of satisfaction.

We mark our road by success.

We measure our worth by victory.

In all these things,

we deny you.

We deny the way you set before us,

the way that points to the holy,

the way that guides us to the bare-faced

rule of God.

We deny the way of suffering.

We treat it as a plague,

evidence of defeat,

the problem of evil,

the reason to doubt.

Yet this is the very road on which you invite us.

We deny the blessing of pain.

We deny the trial of mourning.

We deny the teaching of loss.

We deny you

when we believe you cannot exist in such things.

When we deny suffering,

we deny the cross.

When we deny suffering,

we deny you.

Forgive us, suffering Christ.

Teach us to delight in your ways:

In mourning, denial, betrayal, beating

mocking, hanging, stabbed, and crucified.

Teach us the joy of suffering.

Teach us the way of the cross.

Blessed be your name no matter what the circumstances.

AMEN.

Confession of Sufficiency

leader: Let us confess our sin before the king and one another.
we kneel

leader: We can confess that so often we think that we are smarter than You and that we know better than You.

all: Lord forgive us!

leader: We confess that we often twist Your Word God to meet our own needs, expectations and for our own benefit.

all: Lord forgive us!

leader: We confess that we try and answer the question of the mystery of the universe that You have laid out for us in splendor with earthly knowledge and apply our own knowledge to things we can’t comprehend.

all: Lord forgive us!

leader: God we confess to you that we try and make things so complex when You speak simply. And we make things simple that You have gifted to us in complexity.

all: Lord forgive us!
leader: God we confess to you that we twist our earthly knowledge and allow that to lead us into our own self sufficiency instead of relying on the sufficiency Christ.

all: Lord forgive us!

Confession of Surrender

silence

L: Let us surrender our brokenness to the one who has conquered all.

all: Jesus, we are fools in need of grace. We want to be Lord of all slaves to no one, but in fact we are slaves to all, Lord of none.

all: conquer us again. Take over. Invade our lives. Give us no choice.

all: we surrender.

Confession of This & That

we kneel

Leader: We confess…
All: That we are sitting in a den of lions

Leader: We confess…
All: That we are terrified that God won’t send an angel to close the mouths of the lions.

Leader: We confess…

All: That as we wrestle with our faith.

Women: With the dark hole that we find ourselves in.

Men: That we cannot save ourselves.

Women: Even though we try our hardest.

Leader: We come to the end of ourselves & know that we need a rescuer.

All: So we cry to You, O God, rescue us from our sin, death, and the darkness that surrounds us.

Leader: Rescue us from all of that.
All: So that we might have life again in this.

Confession of Too Small A Love

Leader: People of God,

if we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.

But when we confress our sin, God who is faithful and just

will cleanse our sin, and lead us into righteousness.

leader: We confess to you God
all: the things we have loved
men: the thing we should love
women: the good things
all: that these things have occupied all our attention

leader: we have fallen short in our love
women: we have not loved you with our whole heart
men: we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.

leader: we have given to the poor without loving them
all: we have fed without even caring about them
men: we have used them to make us feel better
women: we have used the poor for our own sake.

all: for the sake of your Son Jesus Christ,

have mercy on us.
men: forgive us
women: renew us

all: and lead us.

all: so that we may delight in your will and walk in your ways. For the sake of your Son Jesus Christ. AMEN.

Confession of Unknowing

Leader: we come before God with our confession…

…silence…

Most merciful God,

all: we confess to you, maker of the universe, that we wish to make you small,
men: to make you knowable,
women: to make you understandable

all: we confess that we trust our own reason, beliefs, and thoughts
men: that you would be small enough to fit what we can understand,
women: that you would fit a word, a thought, or an idea

all: but you are bigger than a word,

bigger than a thought,

bigger than an idea,

bigger than anything we would wish to contain you with.

all: forgive us, for we are proud
men: forgive us, for we are small and do not understand
women: forgive us, for we are finite, and you are infinite.
all: give us courage to revel in your mystery,

to trust what we cannot understand,

to follow what we hope and trust.

To you be the glory, now and forever

AMEN.

Confession of Voices:

L: What is the word? What is teaching?
all: It is the radical encountering of difficult, hard, honest, comforting, holy truth.

L: let us confess before God and one another our distraction from the Word and God’s word.
silence

L: Holy God,

all: Have mercy on us,

for we have sought truth only in the places we wanted to find it.

men: we looked for your voice in ourselves,

in our strength, in our confidence,

in the definition handed to us by our peers. We are told: I define our own truth.
all: And we believed it.

women: we looked for your voice in society,

in the autotune of pop culture, rather than the symphony of your voice,

We look to the cover of a magazine to reveal your secrets.

all: and we believed them.

all: have mercy on us, for we need to hear your voice.

Speak to us through your word, through your example, and through your Son.

Teach us to listen, teach us to follow, and teach us to die so we may rise with you.

AMEN.

Confession of Whining

L: Let us confess before God and one another that we have whined.

C: (whining) I DON’T WANNA

L: You have worked in us to will and to act.

C: DO WE HAVE TO?

L: According to your good purpose you have called us to be like stars.

C: STARS ARE STUPID

L: I have poured myself as a drink offering for you.

C: WHATEVER.

L: I have sacrificed myself for your good, even unto death.

C: SO WHAT?

L: and I did it without complaining.

(silence)

C: God, we have whined, we have complained,

we have bargained,

we have dodged,

and yet you still love us.

C: Teach us to take the nature of a servant, humbling ourselves,

becoming obedient,

even to the death of ourselves,

that we may be more like Jesus everyday.

C: Your will, not ours be done.

AMEN.

Litany of Expectations

Leader: God, tonight we lay our expectations at the foot of your throne.
We know that expectations aren’t always a bad thing, but there are times when we let them get in our way.

All: You are trying to do this beautiful and holy thing. And instead of recognizing what You are doing, we complain. We argue. We are angry.

Leader: Instead of running to seek out the wisdom of Your Word, we would rather listen to our own words.

All: So tonight, we pray that you would take our false expectations, ideas and attitudes about who You are God and Your Kingdom. That You would remove the burdens that weigh us down, unstop our ears so we may hear, and open our eyes so we may see.

All: For this reason we kneel before the Father. For He is able to do immeasurably more than we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church & in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever. Amen!

Litany of Faith

Leader: Why have you come? What do you wish to see?

ALL: We wish to see a new way, see hope reborn, to see what we know in our hearts but do not always see with our eyes.

Leader: Where does this exist? How do you know it is here?

ALL: We know that wherever two or more are gathered in the name of Jesus, God is there. We know that when we love one another, God becomes visible.

Leader: How do you know it is true? How can you trust such a thing?

ALL: It seems too good, too big, too wide, too far out to be true. But the ache in my bones, the itch in my doubt, the craving of my soul I cannot ignore. I cannot prove it, I just know it to be true.

Leader: What now? What do we do now?

ALL: We sing.

Litany of Humility

Leader: O Jesus! meek and humble of heart,

All: Hear me.

Leader: From the desire of being esteemed,

All: Deliver me, Jesus.

Leader: From the desire of being loved…

All: Deliver me, Jesus.

Leader: From the desire of being extolled …

All: Deliver me, Jesus.

Leader: From the desire of being honored …

All: Deliver me, Jesus.

Leader: From the desire of being praised …

All: Deliver me, Jesus.

Leader: From the desire of being preferred to others…

All: Deliver me, Jesus.

Leader: From the desire of being consulted …

All: Deliver me, Jesus.

Leader: From the desire of being approved …

All: Deliver me, Jesus.

Leader: From the fear of being humiliated …

All: Deliver me, Jesus.

Leader: From the fear of being despised…

All: Deliver me, Jesus.

Leader: From the fear of suffering rebukes …

All: Deliver me, Jesus.

Leader: From the fear of being calumniated …

All: Deliver me, Jesus.

Leader: From the fear of being forgotten …

All: Deliver me, Jesus.

Leader: From the fear of being ridiculed …

All: Deliver me, Jesus.

Leader: From the fear of being wronged …

All: Deliver me, Jesus.

Leader: From the fear of being suspected …

All: Deliver me, Jesus.

Leader: That others may be loved more than I,