Prayers of Confession
'In our own strength we cannot stand'
A collection of prayers of confession and absolution, many based on scripture, some for particular occasions.
(updated March 2022)
A collection of prayers of confession and absolution, many based on scripture, some for particular occasions.
(updated March 2022)
The scariest thing about worship in a Christian church is (or should be!) the possibility that God will change us. The trouble is, being changed is the last thing that we want. Changing other people – by all means! But changing ourselves? That’s more problematic. It’s tempting to focus on the joy of the Lord and the warmth of comfort and the timeless truth of scripture … and not get around to confession. For it is the act of confessing our sins to God that most explicitly invites the Holy Spirit to remake us from the inside-out.
In this collection of prayers of confession I focus on being real with God. Some are based on scripture texts and Psalms, but all aim to help God’s people to name our struggles, fears and pain. The Psalms teach us how to bring God in to our own dark corners of existence … and show us how God brings us in to the grand scheme of the universe since before time, which of its very nature knows all about brokenness.
So I hope you find these useful. I hope they inspire you to write your own prayers of confession. There are many, many bits of the Bible that are directly relevant to this and are a wonderful resource for a deeper experience of Christ’s forgiveness and freedom.
In this collection of prayers of confession I focus on being real with God. Some are based on scripture texts and Psalms, but all aim to help God’s people to name our struggles, fears and pain. The Psalms teach us how to bring God in to our own dark corners of existence … and show us how God brings us in to the grand scheme of the universe since before time, which of its very nature knows all about brokenness.
So I hope you find these useful. I hope they inspire you to write your own prayers of confession. There are many, many bits of the Bible that are directly relevant to this and are a wonderful resource for a deeper experience of Christ’s forgiveness and freedom.
Prayer of confession: We get distracted
We give you praise and honour, living God,
and seek to know you, Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, Holy Spirit.
We place you in the highest place and worship you;
for you alone are worthy of all honour.
And so we confess to you the ways in which our lives do honour you.
We get distracted and pulled by so many competing things;
worries and frustrations abound in our world.
In this sacred place we name you again as Lord
and bring to your holy altar all that troubles us.
All that pulls our focus away from you
we confess
and ask your forgiveness.
… silence
People of the living God, I declare
that God’s mercy is wider than our sins,
God’s power far exceeds our limitations,
and God’s love wins out over all that rises against it.
In the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour
you are forgiven.
We give you praise and honour, living God,
and seek to know you, Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, Holy Spirit.
We place you in the highest place and worship you;
for you alone are worthy of all honour.
And so we confess to you the ways in which our lives do honour you.
We get distracted and pulled by so many competing things;
worries and frustrations abound in our world.
In this sacred place we name you again as Lord
and bring to your holy altar all that troubles us.
All that pulls our focus away from you
we confess
and ask your forgiveness.
… silence
People of the living God, I declare
that God’s mercy is wider than our sins,
God’s power far exceeds our limitations,
and God’s love wins out over all that rises against it.
In the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour
you are forgiven.
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Spring confession (all age worship)
Thank you Lord for the Spring, for the colour and life we see around us. Thank you for every sign of hope. It’s easy to get scared and upset by things that happen in the world, but you draw us to celebrate and praise. Thank you for every bit of beauty in the world. We know all too well that there is also so much that is ugly, even in our own hearts. We know only too well that so much that is lovely is under threat of destruction. We confess to you that even in what we say and do there is not enough hope, not enough love. Without you we can’t do much right. We confess our sins to you O Lord. Make us new again. Bring fresh energy, burst your life out in us. |
Still Small Voice: (based on 1 Kings 19:11-13)
Lord of all, we come to worship seeking your presence. We come to worship seeking your peace. Life gets busy, life gets loud. Like Elijah in the cave up the mountain, we often feel battered by strong winds. We often feel broken and shaken. We often feel bruised and burned. Come, living God. Still small voice, speak to us. Like Elijah we look for somewhere to run and hide. We confess to you that we retreat from the truth, we hide from the needs of others when the demands of the world overwhelm us. We confess to you that we easily jump to blame others instead of facing our own failures. Come, living God. Still small voice, speak to us. Speak to us, like you did to Elijah; call us out of our cave, out of our comfort zone, into the world, into risk and adventure. Go with us, God of the wind, the earthquake and the fire. Stay with us, God of the silence. Come, living God. Still small voice, speak to us. Amen. |
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Children of Grace
(Ephesians 1: 3-14) Friends, as we gather our thoughts into quietness, we confess our sins to the One who knows us best. We know ourselves chosen, adopted as children of God. We dare to believe that you and I are part of a plan conceived before the foundation of the universe. But are we living as God’s children? Are we honouring our inheritance? We know ourselves called, but we’re so easily distracted. We know ourselves loved, but we balk at the cost. Come, friends, let us confess our sins to the Lord. (silence) Friends, our God has poured out grace upon grace, freely, in great abundance, even on you, even on me, though we never earned it and don’t deserve it. In Christ we are made new through his blood; all your sins and mine crumble away. In Christ we are forgiven, signed with the Spirit, lavished with gift upon gift, released into hope to live for praise and for glory. Amen. |
The poverty of our imagining: Ephesians 3:20-21:
“Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.” Glorious God, we come in worship this morning well aware of falling short of our glory. Forgive the poverty of our accomplishing. Even after all our efforts we still so often feel that we have not done enough. We confess our trying to you, and ask for your power to be at work within us. Forgive the poverty of our asking We come to prayer too rarely, and we ask of you too sparingly. We confess our praying to you, and ask for your Spirit to pray within us make us bold as we claim your victory in the world, fire our courage to pray. Forgive the poverty of our imagining The world as it is has invaded our souls. Our lives are cluttered and mundane. We confess our dreaming to you, and ask for your dreams of how the world could be; release creativity in us, free our imaginations. Forgive the poverty of our praise. All glory be to you, incredible God! Glory from the church, glory from generation upon generation, through all time till beyond time, Amen. |
