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Writer's pictureBradley Bell

A Liturgy for the Well-Worn Missions Leader

O God who saw a world to fill with glory

And then made it by your word

You have seen a new world to fill with glory

Poured in by Christ the living Word

Topped off by the redeemed of every nation


Lord, I long to see that world.


Yet you have not spoken that world into being

No, you have chosen instead

To speak your word through unclean lips

To pour your glory through leaky wineskins

To win it all through the weak and needy


Lord, I am often weak and needy.


I know you will see your vision through

I know it, or I wouldn't be here still

But I have been around the block enough to know

This is a vision so big

That only you could accomplish it


Lord, I believe—help my unbelief.


I live in a ministry that demands immediate results

But it's slow work

I live with a burden to see the lost saved

But I cannot save

I live with an urgency to mobilize your church

But she seems distracted

I live with a longing to be sent myself

But here I am

I live to befriend those who are going

But they leave me

I live to pour myself into this work

But I grow tired


Lord, I am not sufficient for these things.


So I look to you who bids me come

Again and again and again

Who's only requirement for grace

Is to come weak and needy

Empty to be filled


Lord, I need the same gospel I hold out to others.


You invite me to rest and wear your yoke

The tool for working oxen

I confess it is a strange analogy

And yet it is an easy and light burden

When I see that you do the heavy lifting


Lord, your finished work secures that which is unfinished.


O God who saw in me a vessel to fill with glory

Here again I offer back that which you have first given

My strength, my weakness, my everything

Pour through me Christ the living Word

And top off your world with redeemed from every nation.


Amen.

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