By the 2021-202 Families Valued Leadership Council
Leader: Lord, we know that from the very beginning you set us in families. We know
you set the lonely in families, and we are grateful for the many shapes our families may take. Whatever shape our families take, we thank you for the gift of community and belonging. Lord, we acknowledge that we are not meant to bear the weight of care alone. We accept your call to love our neighbors as we love ourselves and our own families.
Response: We commit to honor our families and love our neighbors.
Leader: Lord, open our eyes to the needs of our neighbors so that we may be the hands and feet of Christ.
Response: Who then is our neighbor?
Leader: Our neighbor is the father who needs to care for a newly adopted child…
Response: Who then is our neighbor?
Leader: Our neighbor is the mother going back to work one week after giving birth…
Response: Who then is our neighbor?
Leader: Our neighbor is the stepdaughter whose stepmother is recovering from a stroke…
Response: Who then is our neighbor?
Leader: Our neighbor is the co-worker who needs time each day to nurse her newborn…
Response: Who then is our neighbor?
Leader: Our neighbor is the restaurant worker who comes to work sick because he cannot afford to stay home…
Response: Who then is our neighbor?
Leader: Our neighbor is the pastor going through cancer treatment…
Response: Who then is our neighbor?
Leader: Our neighbor is the small business owner who wants to provide for her employees but worries about financial and administrative costs…
Response: Who then is our neighbor?
Leader: Our neighbor is the parent who cannot keep her job through the winter cold and flu season…
Response: Who then is our neighbor?
Leader: Our neighbor is the woman who has promised to accompany her good friend through surgery and rehabilitation…
Response: Who then is our neighbor?
Leader: Lord, help us to know how to best meet the needs of our neighbors whether through prayer, through a timely delivered hot meal, or through advocacy for a national paid leave policy. Be gracious and loving to the lonely, the disheartened, the exhausted, the overwhelmed. Let us not grow weary in well-doing. Equip us to seek justice and serve our neighbors in our churches, communities, in our state Capitols, and the halls of Congress.
Group: We commit to keeping your commands first to love the Lord our God with all our heart, and with all our soul, and with all our mind, and with all our strength, the second to love our neighbor as ourselves, because there are no commandments greater than these.