We bring to this meeting all of who we are.
This is both our greatest weakness and our greatest strength.
We will have come with priorities
that we might barely be aware of
urgent expectations that we haven’t yet identified
with raw nerves that surface, unbidden
at unexpected moments
with fragilities unacknowledged and unwanted
that we have learnt only sometimes successfully to mask
This is both our greatest weakness and our greatest strength.
Tied inextricably to those,
we will have come with questions
that don’t yet have words to shape them
we will bring experience that we haven’t yet valued
and knowledge that we take for granted.
This is both our greatest weakness and our greatest strength.
but what will make this a highly functioning gathering
what will produce our best work
is if we acknowledge and embrace our own complexity
our incongruities and contradictions
our uncertainties and expectations
if we let them be on the table too.
Let me finish with an invitation that brings that to this space.
In this space,
all of who we are is welcome,
and all of who we are is needed.
so in the silence,
name to yourself what you bring:
your strengths
your failures
your capacity
your weakness
let those things sit alongside all that your neighbour brings.
and let it become part of the gift we can be. Amen.
(adapted from Cheryl Lawrie, Hold This Space)
Prayer to end a meeting
Loving God,
thank You for the gift of this time together.
For the chance to listen and to share,
to wrestle with challenges and to dream of possibilities,
to discover again that in You, we belong to one another.
As we leave this place, carry us with Your Spirit.
When the work ahead feels heavy, remind us we do not walk alone.
When questions linger, give us patience and courage.
When hope seems distant, let us lean on one another,
and on the promise that Christ is always in our midst.
Send us out with hearts encouraged,
with friendships strengthened,
and with joy in knowing that unity is not ours to manufacture,
but Your gift to nurture and live into.
Keep us faithful to that calling,
and bless the paths that now open before us.
In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
God’s peace be with you.
God’s love surround you.
God’s Spirit guide you, now and always. Amen.
(Source: Sandy Boyce)
