Immanuel, God who is with us,

We praise you and bless your name for your presence among us. In your Son, you came to us in flesh. Through your Holy Spirit, you fulfilled the promise to be Immanuel, God with us, always and forever. We feel your presence, we experience your presence, we know your presence, and so we know you are faithful.

So let us, with the Spirit’s daring, step from our pasts and leave behind our disappointment, pain, and grieving, seeking new paths and sure to find that you are alive and go before us, to show and share what love can do. You, through your Spirit, are making all things new.

Grant us a daring spirit; daring to go into the world in your name. Daring to dream big, to believe in the impossible, to uphold your call. You are the God of great reversals: you make possible the impossible, you bring hope out of despair, you surface joy out of grief, and you sow love in the midst of hate. As you teach us, and as you lead us, bring to bear those great reversals through us, giving us the courage to follow where the Spirit’s daring lead takes us.

For we desire to be your church, daring to serve Eastman and Dodge County. We dare to bring hope to those in despair, to surface joy for those in grief, to sow love in the midst of hate, and to demonstrate that with you, all things are possible for you are making all things new. Make new the lives of those we know who suffer this day, bring relief to those we know who struggle, grant health and healing to those we know whose bodies cause more harm than health, especially those in the grips of the flu during this terrible season.

In your son, we experience the resurrection from our deaths; our little deaths of disappointment, guilt, and grief; our little deaths of despair and hate, our little deaths of illness and emptiness. You resurrect us from these, with the daring of your Spirit, to make us new again. Grant us belief in your Spirit’s daring, in the potential that flows from who you are, that we may dare to believe that, through you, all things are indeed possible.

Through your Son, who made us new again, Amen.