Hear our Prayer, the cry of the called for the future of the people called Methodists.
O Ancient of Days, your youngest priests and prophets seek the wisdom of your Spirit.

Grown in the walls of cross and flame,
         nurtured by Wesleyan verse and tune, we are made to be Methodist
                   yet redeemed only by your Son's life and death.
We see a world full of change and a church crippled without it.
Inspired by the fire of reformation and the proclamation of whole and balanced truth,
               we answer your call 
                   yet the mantle is passed with strings attached by committee.
We are asked to be an encouragement, not a movement; told to renew without reform.

When, O Lord, did the movement become a bulwark never changing, tying our hands in the name of tradition?  How long will order and discipline and politics hide your gospel?

We yearn for the numbed and novicaned church to groan under the reality of passionate and practiced faith once more.
         Fear of death keeps our sacred doors closed to new life but open to the evils of hypocrisy and complacency.  We fight within and our witness is without. 
         We point fingers at one another, not Jesus the Christ.
         The connection of the cross is a target, the unity of the flame a goal we forget.

O God of Unity, where other tribes of Christ divide, lead us to reach across pain and anger, to speak and listen in holiness and humility.  Give us courage to trust in the timing of your wisdom, placing the wholeness of the body above the agenda of a part. 
          
Great Redeemer, let us show forth a body of LOVE, that is stronger than the forces prying our praying hands apart; a body learning and living in the brokenness of the world that there be healing and humility, reality and redemption found in our embrace.

Holy Trinity, tear down the babbling towers of institution and revive in your people the unifying faith that informed our structure.  Strengthen our resolve to live and evolve by your Spirit, that our UM-core might be an outpouring of our spiritual core.  Save us from researching our sins and documenting our death but let us live a new life freed from our own bonds of respectable religion.

Hear our prayer, Alpha and Omega, make us a people of spirit-filled discipline, joyful obedience, and fiery, freeing faith; that by your cross and your flame, we would proclaim your holy presence in every corner of sin, every house of worship, every palace of power.

Rev. Stephanie Gottschalk is a Provisional Elder in the Western Pennsylvania Conference and a graduate of Wesley Theological Seminary.  Her vision for the United Methodist Church is that we would embrace the uncomfortable but awesome guidance of the Holy Spirit and honor that living, life-giving presence in our conferences, congregations, committees, and communities.