Growing Together 
Additional ideas for worship

PRAYERS

The Lord's Prayer – a responsive version:

Our Father, who art in heaven…
		You are also at home in the air, soil, forests and oceans,
Hallowed be Your name…
	By the care we take of your creation,
Your Kingdom come…
		All that you see is good,
Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven…
		Your will to till and care.

Give us this day our daily bread…
		That all may have sufficient to live life in fullness
Forgive us our trespasses…
		our greed, our exploitation, our lack of concern for other species and for 		future generations,
As we forgive those who trespass against us...
		by reconciliation with justice and peace
Lead us not into temptation…
		the temptation to equate dominion with exploitation,
And deliver us from evil…
		the evil of destroying your gift of creation,
For Yours is the Kingdom…
		Yours Lord, not ours,
The Power and the Glory…
		in the cross and the resurrection,
For ever and ever…
		You were the beginning and you are the end
Amen 
		And so be it.

 From Module 2 Eco-congregation resources From Module 2 Eco-congregation resources
[www.ecocongregation.org]

Jesus Christ,
tempted to turn stones to bread in the wilderness:
teach us that when we change time for our convenience:
night to day in our living,
patience to speed in our journeying,
winter to summer in our eating,
we change God's calendar which brings
the hatchling to the caterpillar,
the bee to the nectar,
the rains to the farmer;
to the one which brings you to the cross.

Give us grace in our simplest actions
to choose the life which breathes in 
the beautiful complexity of creation, 
to conquer death, 
and to fit us to be Easter people. 
Amen.
© Eleanor Todd Eco-congregation (Scotland)

The Operation Noah Prayer
Creator God, how deep are your designs!
You made a living earth, cloud, rain and wind,
and charged us with their care.

We confess that the way we live today
is changing the climate, the seas and the balance of life
dispossessing the poor and future generations.

Build our lives into an Ark for all creation,
and, as you promised Noah never to repeat the Flood,
so make us heralds of a new rainbow covenant:
choosing life for all that is at risk -
for creation, neighbours near and far,
our children and ourselves.
Amen
See Operation Noah www.christian-ecology.org.uk/noah

A Prayer from the Guaraní indigenous people, Paraguay
Lord, you have made us
With your loving hands.
You have formed us
With the mud of this earth.
You have given us your spirit.
We are part of you,
We are your family
And you recognize us as such.
You have perfumed us with the smell of this earth
You have painted us with the sun of this earth:
We, the sons and daughters of this earth,
Are your sons, and your daughters.
Lord, you have given all your children
The destiny of reaching the fullness of life.
That is why we are searching for the LAND WITHOUT EVIL,
The great dream of the Guaraní brothers and sisters
This continues to inspire
Their path and their search to this day.
This spiritual force invites us
To bring out our own dreams.
We share the same great utopia,
We are infected with their yearnings for the future.
We have found out, also, how big the threats are, 
But we know that in confronting them we are renewed.
We are united again, we are set on our feet,
Determined to go on walking,
Determined to go on searching.
Obstacles and difficulties in our path 
Will not make us renounce our dream.
For some purpose you created us, 
For some purpose you sowed us in this earth, 
For some purpose you gave everyone the dream 
Of a LAND WITHOUT EVIL.
For some purpose you brought us together here.
For some purpose you united us with the Guaraní dream.
We ask you to accompany us
On our path and in our search 
For the LAND WITHOUT EVIL
In this earth full of Evils.
Amen. 

Prayer of Searchers for the Land without Evil, A letter from Paraguay.
The “land without evil” is the traditional dream of the Guaraní indigenous people, 
which then relates to the Garden of Eden, the Promised Land and Paradise.

The Operation Noah Prayer
Creator God, how deep are your designs!
You made a living earth, cloud, rain and wind,
and charged us with their care.

We confess that the way we live today
is changing the climate, the seas and the balance of life,
dispossessing the poor and future generations.

Build our lives into an Ark for all creation,
and, as you promised Noah never to repeat the Flood,
so make us heralds of a new rainbow covenant:
choosing life for all that is at risk -
for creation, neighbours near and far,
our children and ourselves.
Amen
See Operation Noah www.christian-ecology.org.uk/noah

CONFESSION

Activity
Each person has a leaf shape made out of paper or thin card. Give time for people to write on their leaf one aspect of their living which does not reflect God's charge to us to care for creation.
Later in the service, under Acting All Together now ask people to write on the other side of their leaf the action that they will take in the future which will change that aspect of their living from detrimental to caring for the planet.
A branch held fast in a large plant pot with soil or sand could then be used for people to tie their commitments to, as a sign of healing for creation. The leaves of the tree symbolise our actions for the healing of the nations.

Responsive Confession
Eternal and Sovereign God,
We recognise that we have been branded by the consumerist culture around us.
We have unwittingly allowed its temporary values to override what is permanent and truly important.

We continue to damage your creation through our over-consumption and wastefulness.
Forgive us, Lord, and help us to refuse to conform any longer to the false aspirations of greed and pretence of our world.

Transform our inmost sense of truth and justice and change the direction and tempo of our lives.
For your name’s sake, Amen.
(From the A Rocha Environment Sunday pack 2005, (www.arocha.org.uk), 
inspired by an excerpt from Living on Purpose by T & C Sine (2001) 
quoted in L is for lifestyle by R Valerio (2004))

MEDITATION
Leader: Please could you find an object in your pocket or handbag which is symbolic of our lifestyle in the rich part of the world. It might be a car key (transport), or a mobile phone (cheap communication). It might be a coin (consumerism) or simply the paper on which this order of service is printed (access to information).

Think for a few moments about all that lies behind that object: where it might have been made, how it was made, who might have made it, the energy and resources used in its manufacture. Try to ask yourself as you meditate whether you could live without it (or what that object symbolises for you). How might you be more content to do without that object? How might it build community?

Forgiveness
God of light and life
whose breath sustains us,
in your forgiving, inspire us with new ways of living
in your redeeming, show us our interdependence with all creation
in your saving, grant us courage to live simply
that we may be good news for the rest of the planet.
Amen.