sustain:if:able kiwi

Prayer for creative workers

As a church, we try to pray monthly for some dimension of people’s work lives. This week we decided to pray for creative workers. We rang and interviewed about 10 people around Opawa, asking them questions like: how do you find satisfaction in your creative work; do you see this as being a dimension of your Christian life. If yes, how?; what could we pray for people who have a creative outlet like yourself. We then asked them to bring something of their “creative work” to display as part of the service.

For Sunday, I then wrote the following prayer:

Introduction:
Today we are surrounded by creativity. We have doves from Pentecost 07, Tiles at back from Pentecost 06, Painted tiles from Pentecost 05.

The first mention of the Spirit in the Bible is in relation to creativity, in Genesis 1: In the beginning God created. The earth was barren and dark; and the Spirit of God was moving over the water. The second mention of the Spirit in the Bible is also in relation to creativity, in Exodus 35: God had chosen two people, Bezalel and Oholiab, and filled them with the Spirit, to be a skilled and creative crafters of objects of art with gold, silver, bronze, stone, and wood.

As a church, we try to pray monthly for some dimension of people’s work lives. We ring them and interview them and ask them to bring something from their work. So this month, we are praying for creative people;

Creator God,
Who gave us your creative Spirit,
As we take up this offering, it is a giving of our time and our talents
And so we thankyou for the time and talents of the creative and crafty people in our lives. For Pentecost art, for our musicians and singers, kids and adult, who week by week lead us
For crafty people like Ann and Deirdre
Andy and Jason who cut video
Kathryn and Michial who paint
Peter and Joyce who make art installations,
Gay and Ruth and Steve and Jannette who craft words
We thankyou for these people and for all creative people we know,
We thankyou for the gifts of their lives,
for the way they express the Creative God,
remind us of God’s vibrant colours and God’s attention to beauty,

Thankyou for the way that creativity is a gift, the way a card or a video loop or a well chosen word can give joy and insight,

Thankyou for way that this church – through Easter and Christmas Journey, through Pentecost festival, through Advent art postcards, through music on Sundays – in so many ways nourishes art and creativity. Spirit of God, continue to nourish our creativity I pray,

Creative God, forgive us for the times when we ignore the creativity in our everyday lives, the way we cook and walk and park and dress, when we say “oh, I’m not creative” and in doing so, deny that we are made in the image of the Creator God,

Creative God, you made us all creative,
Give us the courage to take risks, and reveal our creative talents
Help us protect the time and space to be creative
Give stamina and stickability,

God, may our work and the work of this offering, always point to you, the Creator, and never to the Created

This we pray in the name of the One who admired the Creativity of Creation, Amen.