Lord,

We thank you because you have raised up, anointed and appointed people to serve and lead your Church.

What an honor and privilege it is to be entrusted with this responsibility.

Reassured by the knowledge of your abiding presence, may our leaders continue to have the courage to reach out and support one another, to stand firm in what is true, to decrease when others should increase and to lead with vision and compassion.

Lord, we thank you for your enduring presence and perfect wisdom that illuminates the thoughts, decisions and actions of our leaders, for your endless patience, compassion and love.

Help our leaders to remain focused on you, to live and to lead as humble, grateful, assured, and generous servants.

To live and to lead as an example.

To live and to lead as faithful followers of Jesus.

As we pray for our leaders, we also pray this prayer for ourselves.

In our relationships with one another, help us to have the same mindset as Jesus who, despite being in very nature God, humbled himself to full humanness. To serve others. Not for personal gain but so that others would know you.

By your grace, may our example, our words, our actions and our reactions point people to you too.

Help us Lord, we pray!

Amen

Scripture

“Be shepherds of God’s flock that is under your care, watching over them – not because you must but because you are willing, as God wants you to be; not pursuing dishonest gain, but eager to serve; not lording it over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock. And when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the crown of glory that will never fade.”

1 Peter 5:2-4 NIV

“In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.”

Philippians 2:5-7 NIV