We mourn the loss

One of the most meaningful parts of our worship service yesterday came during the prayer of the people (aka the "long prayer"). Each Sunday in our bulletin, we've printed the names of the American soldiers killed in the war over the course of the previous week. Last week, someone suggested that we each read one of the names. This week, we incorporated it into the prayer.

Usually, I pray the entire prayer, but this time I went as far as saying "we mourn the lost of those killed in the war in Iraq this past week." From that point on, individual voices in the pews said each name. Once we read through the list, I continued the prayer.

This was one of the most moving prayer experiences I have had, and after worship a number of people said how meaningful it was for them to remember, in just one small way, each person who had sacrificed their life for our country's war.

I know that there are many churchfolk who read this blog, and I thought I'd offer this as a suggestion for your prayer time as well. If it would be helpful, I'll prepare the list of names for the week each Monday and list it here.

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We mourn the loss of those killed in the war in Iraq this past week, including Americans: Brett E. Angus, Donald J. Hasse, Jerry W. Mills Jr., William D. Richardson, Joshua D. Snyder, William G. Taylor, Brent A. Adams, Daniel J. Clay, John M. Holmason, David A. Huhn, Adam W. Kaiser, Robert Alexander Martinez, Anthony T. McElveen, Scott T. Modeen, Andrew G. Patten, Andy A. Stevens, Craig N. Watson and Philip Allan Dodson.