Offertory Prayers and Invitation for October 2019

Each month’s Offertory Prayers includes an “Invitation to the Offering” (see below) along with a digital image for those who might want to use it. We hope you will find this a helpful way to remind the people in your pews that their offering travels to many places to make a powerful difference in the lives of people they may never meet. You can find great stories of the difference our giving makes at umcgiving.org.

Invitation to the Offering

Your offering last week empowered ministry within our congregation and in response to the needs of our community. It also supported training events held each summer for new district superintendents and directors of connectional ministries. Organized, staffed, and supported by our Council of Bishops, General Board of Higher Education and Ministry, and Discipleship Ministries, this event brings together those called into these crucial leadership roles to equip and network these leaders for the mission of our United Methodist Church. Ministries like this happen, thanks to the way the people of The United Methodist Church live and give connectionally. I invite you to give generously, as we worship God through sharing our gifts, tithes, and offerings.

Click here to learn more about the work of the Council of Bishops.

Offertory Prayers

Note: The following prayers relate to lectionary texts selected for use in Discipleship Ministries’ worship resources. All October 2019 prayers connect with the “Living Faith in the Everyday” Series.

October 6, 2019 – Seventeenth Sunday After Pentecost (World Communion Sunday)

Holy God of all good gifts, we confess there have been times when we have given our gifts with the hope of what might come back to us. We have longed for you to increase our wealth, or increase our health and well-being, or increase the quality of our relationships with others. This day, we pray like the disciples, “Increase our faith!” Increase our trust and increase our resolve to be more effective representatives of your love and compassion in the world. We pray in the name of Jesus. Amen. (Luke 17:5-10)

October 13, 2019 – Eighteenth Sunday After Pentecost

God of All Peoples, we bring our gifts to your altar this day, knowing that your love extends not just to those inside these walls, but equally to the communities and cities we serve. We know that when our generosity is focused inward only, it breaks your heart and cheapens our offerings. As you reminded your people in their exile when you instructed them to “pray for the welfare of the city of their exile,” we understand that you send us back into the world to work for the welfare of those who don’t yet know your love, compassion, and gracious forgiveness. Dedicate our gifts for this work, we pray. Amen. (Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7)

October 20, 2019 – Nineteenth Sunday After Pentecost (Laity Sunday)

God of grace and mercy, this day we offer ourselves, our tithes, and our offerings to you. Our giving is only the beginning of how we might honor you in gratitude, for you desire even more that our lives, lived in you, might be all love towards you and all your children on earth. We give joyfully, knowing instead that grace and love are ours to be claimed in Jesus Christ. Such a gift, to be freed from judgment, is far beyond our giving. May our gratitude be shown, not just in what we give but also in how we all our resources to live our lives in love and compassion. In thankfulness, we pray. Amen. (Luke 18:1-8)

October 27, 2019 – Twentieth Sunday After Pentecost (Reformation Sunday)

God of Creation and Transformation, we come this morning, bringing our humble gifts, hoping that we might be made over. We stand before you, not affirming that we are better than we might be, but rather that we are broken and flawed and not what we should be. May we open ourselves—who we are and what we have—to you to be transformed to more closely resemble what you desire us to be. We pray these hopes in the name of the one who has promised that we will be redeemed and raised like him. In Christ, we pray. Amen. (Luke 18:9-14)

October Offertory Prayers & Invitation to the Offering were written by the Rev. Dr. Ken Sloane, Director, Stewardship & Generosity, Discipleship Ministries, The United Methodist Church. [email protected]

Offertory Prayers translated into Spanish can be found at: resourceumc.org/es/topics/stewardship