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LCA Synod 2018

19th General Convention of Synod
Rosehill Gardens NSW | 2–7 October 2018

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Weekly prayers

Sunday 12 August Expand

Thank you, heavenly Father, for your wonderful gift of the church, the body of your Son, Jesus Christ. You have united us with Christians across the world, in time and in eternity as one body in him. We also thank you for your loving care and provision through the Lutheran Church of Australia and New Zealand. 52 years ago you brought us together as one confessing community, bound to each other in faith and love. As we approach our General Convention of Synod in Sydney in October, we ask for your blessing and guidance. Open our hearts, our ears and our eyes to know you, to hear you, and to see the direction in which you want us to go. As the Convention makes decisions that affect all of us, help us keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith. Lord, in your mercy…

Sunday 19 August Expand

Lord of the Church, as Lutheran Christians in Australia and New Zealand we come to you, the living stone. You are shaping and forming us into your spiritual house, a holy people. Grant us grace to serve you with all that we are and have.

We thank you for each person in our fellowship, and for each ministry with which you have trusted us. Thank you for your gift of faith, faith to share with each other and the whole world. Guide us now as we prepare for the Convention of Synod. As we get ready for our gathering, please give us generous hearts, a discerning spirit, and above all, the gift of love for one another. Guide us in our relationships so that we may welcome all sinners in your name.

Grant us courage to live out our faith in Jesus through our words, our actions and with all that we are and have. In particular, at this time of drought in many parts of Australia, please bring comfort and hope to farmers and communities who are suffering in body, mind and soul. Prevent us from focussing so much on ourselves that we fail to hear the cries of the suffering among us and in the world beyond us. Open our hearts, Lord, to join in solidarity with all those who are suffering loss and feeling pain.

Lord, in your mercy …

Sunday 26 August Expand

Heavenly Father, help us all to listen to you carefully so that we may gain wisdom and understanding. Help us always to be true to your word in our faith, doctrine and life. Please guide our delegates at General Synod as they consider proposals on the ordination of women and men, and other important matters in the church.

Lord, may our delegates listen well so they may understand, and when they speak, may they choose to do so carefully and prayerfully. When they vote, let them know that you are present and guiding them. No matter how worthy the cause, don’t allow pride to trap them into ungodly actions and so harm the faith of your precious ones.

All through our General Synod, please give all delegates a spirit of peace and patience that they may share in the mind of Christ. Help them do everything they can to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

Lord, in your mercy …

Sunday 2 September Expand

Lord God, thank you for all your people of the LCA/NZ as baptised disciples of Jesus who walk alongside each other and work together as partners in the gospel.

We praise you for the gifts and experiences each of us brings to the church from our variety of cultures and backgrounds. We praise you for making us part of your global community of believers. We pray especially for our neighbours in Papua New Guinea and South East Asia. We are grateful that some of our brothers and sisters from those places will be our guests at the General Convention of Synod.

Give us grateful hearts and generous spirits as the Synod welcomes them and other overseas guests. Bless the work of our church through LCA International Mission and Australian Lutheran World Service, and grant the Synod wisdom as it considers proposals to become full members of the Lutheran World Federation and the International Lutheran Council.

Lord, in your mercy …

Sunday 9 September Expand

Heavenly Father, we thank you for every believers you have gathered in the LCA/NZ. You bind us together as one body in Christ.

Thank you for all who serve us in this community, volunteer and paid, lay and ordained. We especially thank you for the many service agencies with which you have blessed us – for aged care, for schools, for community care organisations, and for other special forms of ministry. Thousands of people work in these agencies as paid staff, volunteers, chaplains, pastoral carers and contractors. Each is special to you, and their work is a blessing to those whom they serve.

When our Synod gathers and considers governance structures that will best help these agencies flourish, help us be wise stewards of your gifts. Help us, above all, to value the gift of the gospel and the opportunity you have given us to do good works that will benefit others. Give us strength and courage to be a blessing to the world and bring the gift of hope into the lives of many.

Lord, in your mercy …

Sunday 16 September Expand

Thank you so much, heavenly Father, for sending us your Son Jesus, the Living Word. May he be in us, and we in him. Help us be faithful witnesses to his true light that shines on everyone.

As you have baptised us in your name and made us members of the body of your Son, keep us close to him and to one another as we prepare for our General Convention of Synod in Sydney. We can’t hide our concerns and our fears from you. As we face of difficult decisions, some of us question our unity. You promise us there is no fear in love, because perfect love casts out fear. Give us that love, Lord, and help us put our fears aside, trusting you to reveal your truth.

Please help us always choose the loving path of compassion and respect that binds us together in your truth. For when we love one another, the whole world will know that we are your disciples. No matter how strongly we may believe we know your truth and a brother or sister is in error, don’t let that stop our loving actions.

Teach us what you want us to know through your Word. Give us all grace to turn to you with open hearts, in repentance and prayer. Make us content to walk your way, with grace and faith, as followers of our brother Jesus.

Lord, in your mercy …

Sunday 23 September Expand

Heavenly Father, our General Convention in Sydney is now only just over a week away, and we pray for the delegates and leaders and all who will attend.

During Convention, delegates, guests and visitors will frequently gather to listen to your Word and receive your blessing. As they do that, please give them your Spirit so they listen humbly, practice grace to one another, and make wise decisions.

Across the church, in our congregations and worship centres, homes and places of work, please also give us grace to pray for our delegates and leaders, and for the welfare of your church.

Help us to be faithful witnesses who serve you by what we do as much as by what we say. Help us to respond wisely and generously to those who may feel uncertain, rejected, isolated or powerless. Help us to honour all your people, women and men, young and old, healthy and sick, and to reach out to all those in need.

Please bless us Lord, and keep us as one family in you, that we may go on serving you on earth until you take us to our heavenly home.

Lord, in your mercy …

Sunday 30 September Expand

We praise you, Almighty God and Father, for your presence in our lives and your faithfulness to us every day.

Please keep our Synod delegates safe as they travel. Protect them as they meet. Give everyone there the joy of sharing your gospel with one another. Bless those who are preparing the meeting venue and the agenda. Be with the Lutheran Women of Australia Convention this weekend.

Holy Spirit, renew our church. Focus our thoughts, will, words and actions on your will and your ways – one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all. Keep us 
focussed on you. Let us be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger, doers of your word and not just hearers.

Lord Jesus Christ, the Father has told us to listen to you as his Beloved Son. You are the Light of the world. Shine on the Lutheran Church of Australia and New Zealand, so that nothing is more holy to us than to hear your voice and follow you, our Good Shepherd. Help us grow as your people in worship and witness, in receiving and giving, to be a blessing to the whole world.

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever!

Lord, in your mercy …

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The power of the Church shall be exercised through the General Synod, which shall be the highest constitutional authority of the Church, with power to direct and control those to whom it has entrusted tasks or has delegated authority.

(Constitution of the Lutheran Church of Australia 7.1)

Holding a General Synod is a serious matter, as Synod has the ‘power to direct and control’ the affairs of the church. Every three years our General Synod elects the leaders of the church and sets their tasks for the coming period. Each leader so elected, including your bishop, answers to the Synod for how we have conducted that ministry.

As we approach the time of General Synod it’s important that your congregation, parish or place of ministry has taken care to appoint its delegate/s to the General Synod this October, and I hope that you have already prayed as you made that appointment.

Now is also the time for all of us to pray for all the organisers, leaders and delegates who are preparing for the Synod across Australia and New Zealand. The tasks before us are immense, and we cannot do them in our own power. Only God’s power makes the work credible, or even possible.

That’s why, as in 2015, I am calling the LCA once more to prayer as we come together to place our future into God’s hands, and discern his will for this church. On this page you will find weekly petitions designed for use in divine service on Sundays or whenever your community gathers for worship.

The 2018 General Synod will be examining a number of high level issues relevant to the ongoing health and vitality of the LCA. Among these will, once again, be the question of the ordination of women and men and the unity of the church. We will also consider our place in the international Lutheran community, the communion of infants. There will be many practical and structural issues on the agenda such as governance and administration, constitutions, compliance, church discipline and mission initiatives. The agenda will be quite full and each decision made will have an ongoing impact.

Among the complexities we face in being church in today’s world, our faith instructs us to share our anxieties with God in prayer, and trust him, rather than ourselves with the wellbeing and progress of the church. Jesus reminds us to pray always and not to lose heart (Luke 18:1), and St Paul reassures us in Romans 8:26–27: 'the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God'.

So let’s pray then, as a church, trusting that the church is safe in God’s hands.

Bishop John Henderson
August 2018

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