CityChurch is a place that values the beauty of liturgy. Connecting the truths of God with our hearts is one of our passions. Below you will find a collection of liturgies written by our pastor and staff that have been used in our worship services.
Father, I confess that though my head tells me
That your love for me is better than life,
And that your perfect love casts out all fear
In my heart, I can't stop fearing the approval of other people.
I confess that what others think of me
Matters more to my heart than what you think of me.
I don’t just value the praise and adoration of other people,
I am addicted to it.
It brings me life to be admired.
It brings me joy to be appreciated.
But that also means it also brings death to be ignored.
As a result, I admit that I'm more of a performer than I am a servant.
I confess that I use other people more than I have any care for them.
I often hold them for ransom until they give me sufficient praise.
And the constant comparisons that swirl through my head
Keep me up at night and unable to turn off my fears.
Father, forgive me for believing the lie
That life can be found in the fickle praise of other people.
Forgive me for searching for life
In the validation of people who can never save me.
And forgive me for believing that the “well done” of any other person
Can compare with the “well done” that you speak over my life.
Free my heart from seeking validation from people
Who are as screwed up as I am.
Point my wayward heart once again back to the cross
So that I might drink deeply from the well of life
That comes from the sacrifice of your life for mine,
That I might truly know what it means
To once and for all be accepted, validated, loved, and cherished.
Lord, I believe that you are my heart’s greatest treasure.
It is with sincerity here that I join in singing your praise.
But if I'm really honest,
There is ample evidence in my life that this just isn't true.
When I look at where I’ve spent my money,
When I look back at how I've invested my time,
And I see the freedom and joy I have in spending both on my pleasures,
But a reluctance to spend it freely on others,
Or when the same joy of giving to the work of your kingdom
Is far from my heart,
I have to admit, that my deepest and greatest treasure, is really myself.
Jesus, you tell me that where my heart’s passions run wild
That's where I reveal my true treasure.
And I confess that your mercies to me,
Your grace in my life
Don’t produce the same passions of freedom and joy
That spending both my money and my time on myself produce.
Father, I am a selfish person by nature.
Forgive me for masking a deep love for Jesus
Beneath a façade that is obsessed with my own comfort and joy.
Forgive me as well for finding more joy and greater satisfaction
In these things than I do in the grace that is mine because of Jesus.
And teach me, Holy Spirit, to connect my giving,
Both of my money and of my time
To the unsearchable riches of your grace toward me.
Flood my heart with joy at the remembrance of your matchless love for me
That I might give freely, joyfully, generously
Just as you have given to me.
Amen
Lord, you know I hate waiting.
I hate not knowing what's coming.
Such seasons of divine silence
Fill my heart with the noise of my own doubts,
My own fears.
And it's easy to generate feelings of panic.
Fears of abandonment naturally come to my mind.
And I'm often blanketed with the shame of feeling
That somehow this must be my fault.
Lord, why do you seem to answer the prayers of everybody else
But my prayers feel like they're lost in the desert of my confusion?
Why do I sometimes feel so alone as I offer my petitions to you?
Like the Psalmist, I want to cry out
“Aren’t you there? Are you really listening?”
“How long, O Lord, how long must I wait for you?”
And if I'm honest, I have to admit that what I'm really seeking
Isn't even you – it's the answers you bring.
I don’t want your presence so much as I want your deliverance.
Forgive me for using you as merely a means to my own ends.
Forgive me for not seeing that you alone are the answer to my prayers.
And forgive me for missing the provision of your presence
When all I'm looking for are my own answers.
Remind me that I was made for you alone.
Teach my fickle heart that all the answers in the world,
Without your presence,
Will leave me just as empty and alone as I often feel in my times of need.
Lord, I believe that you are all I need.
Help my unbelief.
Thank you Lord for hearing my prayer.
Thank you for the promise of your presence.
Thank you for the reminder that in you
I already have everything I need.
Help my heart to rest in that now.
Holy Father, I have to admit that your holiness undoes me.
And like Adam and Eve, I want to run and hide.
When I see my own unholiness, it feels like a nakedness to my soul.
And I want to sew together the fig leaves of my own righteous acts.
Even watching the comparative holiness of those around me
Makes my heart feels so exposed and “less-than”
That I often hide my true self from even my closest friends.
And I'm prone to pretend to be better, wiser, more put together than I really am.
And if I'm really honest,
I don’t even want to be good or wise or put together
As much as I just want to have more of it than somebody else.
I want the covering of satisfaction that somebody is more messed up than me.
I crave the glory of praise and success,
I long to feel the envy of others,
Because, even though that envy is all an empty farce,
I feed on the covering their adoration brings to my exposed heart.
And so I admit that I often use people in this quest for self-validation.
By comparison – through judgement – with impatience,
I often express the disdain that builds my own record
On the ashes of the failures of others.
I delight in the weakness of others
Even if I keep it secretly to myself.
Because with their every demise, I nourish my heart.
Father, expose the lies of any spiritual good in my own heart.
Lead me to honesty about my own brokenness,
So that I might drink of your grace.
Help me not to run from my own neediness,
So that my heart can be pointed to the hope of my Redeemer.
And so those around me will the beauty of Jesus,
Instead of the ugliness of my competing heart.
Lord, you are my only Savior.
Neither my righteous deeds nor the failings of others can validate me.
Nor can my delusions of superiority save the brokenness of those around me.
Jesus, I need the covering that only you can give me.
Lead me to rest in the perfect works that you have accomplished for me.
Take the filthy garments of my own self-promotion
And clothe me in the righteous robes of my Savior.
Amen
Father, though I believe in your grace,
There's a part of my heart
That can't let go of my performance.
As much as I believe in the works of Jesus for me,
My failures still drive me to despair.
They bring whispers of hopelessness,
And tell me I’ll never measure up.
It's so hard for me to see that every insight into my brokenness
Is a deeper glimpse into just how much you love me.
Instead, they make me feel unworthy of grace.
As if grace and worthiness could even coexist together!
All this failure drives me to hide my true self from those around me.
I want to appear more together and competent than I really am.
And I'm afraid of what people would think of me.
If they saw all the junk deep inside,
My heart tells me they would reject me.
And rightly so.
The shame of these failures also makes me hide from you.
I resist your many attempts to show me my deeper need.
And the guilt of my shortcomings
Drives me into comparison with others
Rather than toward the repentance I need.
Father, help me to see that
Even if I could pull off the life I long to live
I would only be able to point people around me to me.
It would puff up my pride.
And my goodness can't save anyone.
Help me to see that it's my very clinging to the cross
In the abject need of my constant failures
That offers hope to those who peer into my life.
Lord, help my neediness to be the very tool that you use
To point my heart – and the hearts of those around me
To the only place I know to go for help.
Help me to stop resisting your grace that drives me to the cross
And enable me to rejoice in a repentance that assures me
That I am perfectly loved, absolutely adored,
and cherished by the King of kings.
Lord, I do praise you for being a good, good Father.
You have redeemed my life from the pit,
And crowned me with your love and compassion.
And yet, I confess, it's easy for me to believe that you're not good.
In fact, my life is evidence every day that that I believe
That you're neither good – nor a Father.
Every breath of my heart tells me that you can't be trusted.
And though I would never say it out loud,
I often believe these lies.
I can see evidence of these voices of doubt
That tell me I'm not good enough;
Telling me that I'm a loser who is falling behind.
I am often crippled by these voices of condemnation,
And I’m convinced that unless I can raise my life to a certain standard,
That you could never love me.
And certainly would never bless me.
Forgive me for believing that your goodness isn't enough,
And that I have to prove my own goodness to be worthy of you.
Forgive me for beating myself up with the lies of needing to be a better person,
When what I really need is the honesty of confession.
Forgive me for trying to compete with you
To be the savior of my own life.
Show me that when I place myself under these man-made rules
That it produces pride in me when I succeed;
An impatience and a condescension with others.
And show me that when I fail in these, which I often do,
That the props of my identity come crashing down,
In a flood of tears and despair.
Convince my fickle heart that your goodness
Is enough to cover my inadequacies.
Assure me once again that I can truly rest
In your perfect obedience lived for me.
Help me to believe that because of Jesus
I am a ravishing beauty in your eyes,
Whether I succeed or fail.
Lord, lead my heart today to rest in your goodness.
Father, when I consider your reckless love for me,
And the grand pursuit that led you from heaven
To your death upon the cross
I am ashamed to admit that my love for you
Is far from reckless.
In fact, all too often I find that my love is quite calculated.
I tend you love you more when you give me the things that I want.
And I tend to love those around me
Either when it's convenient for me
Or when I find that they can serve me in some way.
Remind me today of your relentless pursuit of my heart,
That I can see the inconveniences and excuses
That keep me from serving other people for what they really are:
Nothing but selfishness.
Help me to see, as your life showed
That real living comes from dying.
Dying to my agendas.
Dying to my comforts.
Dying to self.
That your life might rise through me into the lives of those around me.
Take the love of self – and the love of my comforts
And remind me once again of what it cost you to love me.
Apply that grace to my heart,
That it might melt away the obsessions with self
And give rise to a growing love for you
And a passion for giving myself away
For the good of those who are hurting around me.
Amen.
Lord, when I turn my eyes to you
My heart finds joy, comfort and peace.
But I confess today that the eyes of my heart
So easily stray to find life apart from you.
And when they stray,
The life those things promise never deliver.
Rather, the path they lead me down
Always lead to disillusionment and emptiness.
Not only do I see hope in things that let me down,
But I fail to see your presence in the trials you bring.
I have eyes that naturally see what's not there
And am blind to the true workings of your Spirit.
I humbly ask today that you would turn my eyes back to Jesus.
That I would see you in my hard times
That I would rejoice in whatever you bring,
And that I would see the imprints of your presence
Over every area of my life.
Together with the Apostle Paul, this is my prayer:
I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ,
The glorious Father,
May give me the Spirit of wisdom and revelation,
So that I may know him better.
I pray that the eyes of my heart may be enlightened
In order that I may know the hope
To which he has called me,
The riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people,
And his incomparably great power for us who believe.
Amen.
Lord, though I confess with my mouth
That you are the only one who can justify me
In my heart, I'm always believing the lie
That my only real validation comes from myself.
When people attack me – or misunderstand me
Or falsely accuse me of some wrong
I am quick to defend myself
Anxious to set the record straight.
When someone challenges my competence
Or makes me feel like a fool
I long to be the judge who
Who vindicates my cause – my worthiness.
I even confess my joy in exposing the failings of others
As their demise makes my own heart feel stronger.
Even when I feign the false humility of a broken sinner
Even there, Father, my heart’s longing
Is the wish that I could be more self-competent
And therefore, less dependent upon your mercies.
Father, at a functional level
My heart betrays my confession
And exposes a heart that is self-protective
Self-validating, self-justifying.
Lead my heart today to see
That all my combined efforts at self-promotion
Are nothing more than a pile of dirty rags
Before the eyes of him to whom I must give account.
And teach my heart to rest
In the perfect validation that you have given to me
As a free gift
Help me to see that Jesus’ perfect life gives me a perfect record
And that his death has paid my debt in full.
Lead this fearful heart to rest in your “well done” alone.
Amen
Child of the King,
This is what your God says to you today:
Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow;
Though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.
For your dirty robes have been washed
And have been made white in the blood of the Lamb.
Child, do not forget the blessings of his grace to you:
He has forgiven all your sins
And heals all your diseases,
He crowns you with love and compassion
And satisfies your desires with good things.
The Lord is compassionate and gracious,
Slow to anger and abounding in love.
He will not always accuse
Nor will he harbor his anger forever;
He does not treat us a our sins deserve
Or repay us according to our iniquities.
For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
So great is his love for those who fear him;
As far as the east is from the west,
So far has he removed our transgressions from us.
Child, these promises are for you today,
Whether you feel it or not.
They are your right and privilege
As an adopted child of the King.
Believe it! Put your hope in it!
For you are his beloved, his greatest treasure.
Father, I confess today that
My heart has a default assumption
That I can see better and understand better
Than other people around me.
There are ways of living that just make sense to me.
There are ways of governing that are so obvious
Even a child could understand better
Than the foolish politicians who govern me.
And it makes me impatient when they fail to see it.
I'm often angry at their clueless indifference to my perspectives.
I sometimes want to rage against the stupidity I see around me.
And I long to wake people up to the obvious truths I see in front of me.
Father, if I'm honest, I can even see this lust for coercive power
In the ways I treat those I most love.
I’ve perfected my ways of forcing my agendas on them
And have often hurt them in the process
Father, forgive me for the pride that assumes I can see.
Forgive me for losing sight of my own spiritual blindness.
Forgive my arrogance in thinking that my ways are better
And that my will must be done.
Show my unbelieving heart
That true power comes from giving myself away.
Remind me of the transforming power of grace in my own life
That came through the weakness of the cross
And your humble service to me.
Father, make me a better citizen of your Kingdom
So I can be a better citizen of this world.
Child, if you truly surveyed my wondrous cross
It would pour contempt on all your pride.
Both pride – thinking you're better than,
And self-loathing – wishing you could be better than,
Can lead you to honest confession,
But only a deep rest in my perfect sacrifice on the cross
Can give you a confident assurance of my love for you.
You don’t need to wallow in your brokenness to gain my love
You don’t need your self-pity and low self-esteem
To earn my forgiveness.
You just need to hear and believe my words to you:
If anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come:
The old has gone, the new is here!
All this is from God, who reconciled you to me through the cross.
And I have reconciled you to myself.
I no longer count your sins against you.
And so I urge you: Be reconciled to God.
This is possible because God made me
Who was without any sin to be sin for you,
So that in me you might become the righteousness of God.
And that is how I view you today: righteous, perfect, and beautiful.
Will you believe that today?
Will you rest in that today?
And will you rejoice in that now together?
Father, there's no escaping that I'm a needy person.
The evidence of my weakness and brokenness
Is manifest all over the face of my life.
And yet, your word convicts me
That my neediness is not as needy as it needs to be.
Though my heart reaches out to you for grace today,
If I'm honest, I'm also reaching for excuses for my sins.
I'm reaching for promises of being better next time.
I'm reaching for the hope that I can be less needy of that grace in the future.
I also admit that I'm prone to beating myself up
In hopes that somehow I can generate enough sorrow for my sins,
Or that the painful reminders of my rebellion
Can somehow atone for my shortcomings.
And I have to admit that at times,
The pain of my brokenness feels more real to me
And more cathartic to my soul
Than hearing your words of forgiveness.
Father, forgive me for being unwilling to accept
Just how free your grace and mercy is.
Forgive me for often trying to compete with you
To be the healer and perfecter of my heart.
Forgive both the lies of my own power to change
And the deception of any penance gained from self-loathing.
Lead my heart to see just how needy I truly am
So that I might reach out for the only grace that can actually heal me.
Lead my heart to rest in the promise
That Jesus has met my every need
So I can lay all my deadly doings down at the faithful feet of my Savior.
Lord, I believe that all the poor and powerless
Will find all the grace and mercy they need.
But I have to admit that more often than not,
I'm only as needy as you force me to admit.
My spiritual poverty is often enriched
With my own efforts at self-improvement.
And there are times when I use my powerlessness
As a tool to earn your grace
Through the penance of my own self-loathing.
And as a result, I have to admit that the joy of your grace
Is not as powerful to me as I wish it would be.
The relief of acceptance and the joy of forgiveness
Are often diminished in my daily experience
Because my need is not deep enough, not honest enough.
And Lord, though I'm sacred to ask
Would you please show me today more and more of my true need.
Don’t let me hide my total inability to manage my own problems.
Show me how utterly dependent I am upon your mercy and grace,
So I might reach out for more grace than my self-swindling heart
Would otherwise believe that I need.
Lord, I want more of your grace.
I want a deeper experience of your presence.
I long for greater joy and thankfulness.
And I realize that only comes through
A greater admission of my need.
Lead me today to look only to Jesus for the help I need
And never to my own cooperative efforts
That diminish the experience of your grace in my life.
Amen
Child, I know what sin does to you.
I understand how broken and lost you often feel.
And I realize how difficult it is for you
To believe how loved and forgiven and cherished you are.
So let me declare this to you once again:
As a young man marries a young woman, so will your Builder marry you;
as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so will your God rejoice over you.
Sing, Daughter Zion; shout aloud, Israel!
Be glad and rejoice with all your heart, Daughter Jerusalem!
The Lord has taken away your punishment, I have turned back your enemy.
The Lord, the King of Israel, is with you; never again will you fear any harm.
The Lord your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves.
I will take great delight in you; in my love I will no longer rebuke you,
But will rejoice over you with singing.
And that is not merely my wish or desire for you;
That is my declaration of who you now are.
Believe it! Rest in it! Rejoice over it!
Lord, I confess that I often only turn my eyes to you
When I'm desperate enough to look for help.
And as a result, the things of this world
And my assumptions of how my life ought to be going
Have not dimmed much in my imagination.
I admit that my natural heart truly believes
That I can see and know how my life ought to go.
I have deep agendas that rule my passions
And I'm often angry and bitter
When life proceeds in directions I don’t like.
But what do I know about your purposes in this world?
I am like an ant shaking my fist at the sun!
I have no control over my future.
Even if I had the power to manipulate it
I'm clueless as to what's best for me and those around me.
Father, lead my heart to trust in your goodness
Even when I can't see it.
Teach me to rest in truth of what Jesus has already proven:
That you love and care for me
More deeply than I could ever imagine.
That you are working all things in my life
Toward a good that is beyond my wildest expectations.
Even more, help me to see that you don’t just lead me to goodness
But you are goodness itself.
Give me a passion for your holy purposes
As deep as the passions I have for my own agendas
That I might find you good and trustworthy
No matter what my circumstances may look like today.
Child, I know your impatience
And I understand your passion for the perfect life.
After all, I made you that way according to my image.
But hear my words:
“I am making everything new!”
This world will never be your perfect home.
One day, the Holy City, the new Jerusalem
Will come down out of heaven from my presence,
Prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.
And I will make my dwelling place among you
I myself will dwell with you.
You will be my people and I will be your God.
And I will wipe away every tear from your eyes.
There will be no more death or mourning or crying
For this old and broken order you're suffering in today
Will pass away.
Because - “I am making everything new!”
Not only will I rescue you from this world,
But I have rescued you from the dominion of this darkness
And have brought you into the kingdom of my Son, Jesus.
It is through him that you have been redeemed
And through him alone that your sins are forgiven.
Lord, I praise you today for your awesome might and beauty.
Your love in rescuing me from sin and death
Is a treasure I will never tire of rehearsing.
But if I'm honest, the reality of that love often seems far from my experience.
There are days when it feels like my prayers are bouncing back off the wall
And the comfort of your presence is hiding from my view.
I often fear that I fail to see you working in my life
Because I already have a vision in my mind of what my healing looks like.
I know the comfort I long for.
I can see the answers my heart desires.
I'm weighed down with these burdens that won't go away.
And through the blindness of my pain and the obsession of my agendas,
I often miss how you're right there working
Forming me into the image of Jesus
Instead of feeding my idols.
I see how I'm often crying out for answers – for relief
When I should be crying out for you.
Teach me to see your Spirit at work in my life
Even when it takes on the forms I'm not looking for.
Lead me to see how you're the perfect Counselor
Who brings the empathy of your tears
And the truth of your conviction
Exactly when I need it.
Lord, I really don’t know what I need.
I know what I want.
And the two don’t often go together.
I give my desires to you
And I ask you to help me rest in the knowledge
That though you're not safe, you're always good.
Child, as long as you use me to satisfy your desires
Instead of seeing that I alone am the hope for all those desires
You will be unassured, tentative, and shamed in my presence.
But I am not your Helper.
I am your Savior.
I have faced down your greatest enemy, death
And I killed it.
I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live,
even though they die.
And whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?
If so, then stop your striving to earn my pleasure.
Put away the guilt of your shame.
Stop toying with the penance of self-loathing.
For you have been raised with Christ,
So set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at my right hand.
Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.
For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ.
When Christ, who is your life, appears,
then you also will appear with him in my glory.
Enter now the rest that I have purchased for you.
In fact, I urge you to make every effort to enter that rest.
That is the only way you will not perish under the weight of your sins.
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