If you or someone you know needs prayers, please contact Lorraine Smith, Prayer Chain Coordinator, at (408) 358-0868 or contact the church office (408) 356-6156 ext. 27

INTERCESSORY PRAYER

The heart of intercessory prayer is accompaniment. Accompaniment is spiritual companionship with others who face difficult questions, distressing illness, or devastating losses. We accompany others through our faith and imagination expressed in silent or spoken prayer. We pray in hope and love because we are strongly encouraged by Jesus to pray for one another and are promised that God is present, attentive and responsive. God's response in guidance, healing, or curing is in the mystery of God's wisdom. We do not assume the answer; we join the petitioner in their request, hopes, longings, anger, questioning, and joys. The art of intercessory prayer is participating in the experience of others, companioning their suffering, picking up their pleas, and holding them in God's presence. Holding someone in God's presence is a deep understanding that God is here and sees them even if they feel abandoned and heaven is closed like a steal door. The experience of absence is common among the suffering, but though hidden, God is present. Some feel if only hundreds would pray for them God would answer, but this is a distressed view of God, for God is aware of every sparrow that falls, every hair on our head, and such notions turn our hope toward others rather than the tender mercies of God's heart revealed in Jesus constant eye on the lonely, the stranger, the sick, and the suffering. There is nothing that can separate us from God's love.
Intercessory prayer has three parts:

1. Listening: Listening is becoming aware of God's presence within us and all around us. It is noticing and renewing our desire for God and will to follow God. It is coming into God's presence and waiting for the Spirit to prompt our faith and imagination. Listening is attending to the petitioner's request, allowing it to become part of us.
2. Holding: Holding is entering into the other's experience and bearing their burden however difficult. We not only hear their cry for help but we join them in their complaint, defense, and longing for God to save them. We "hold them" as they are before God and imagine God's presence and embrace of them. Holding is an act of surrender and trust of God's affection, grace, and intention for their lives.
3. Addressing: Addressing is speaking out of our listening and holding. It is lifting up the desires and hopes of others before God asking for what is needed, echoing their cry, and pronouncing our own longings however personal, raw or guttural and then we surrender again and wait in hope.

For those who desire a modeling of intercessory prayer:

"Blessed are you, 0 Lord our God, by your power our Lord Jesus healed and gave new hope. Though we cannot command or possess your power we pray for_________ who wants ________. To those who ask, you give love; to those who seek, you give faith; to those who knock you open the way of hope."

Or

"Spirit of the living God, present with us now, enter __________ in body, mind, and spirit, and heal (or protect) him/her from all that harms. In the name of the God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Amen."

SCRIPTURE READINGS

The following readings are particularly appropriate for use in pastoral care.