Season of Creation Prayer Service, Wednesday, September 23rd. Times: Nazareth 9:30 a.m.; India 7 p.m.; Nepal 7:15 p.m.; Botswana 3:30 p.m.; Kenya 4:30 p.m.; Belize 7:30 a.m.
Zoom link: https://nazareth-org.zoom.us/j/85047120456?pwd=9CInZsbpo6bqCXhQrIgZEIZuGORBbg.1
INTRODUCTION
The Season of Creation is the annual Christian celebration to pray and respond together to the cry of creation. This year, we unite around the theme “Living Water”, inspired by Ezekiel 47: 9 and 12. This year’s symbol represents renewal and birth: water flowing from the Temple as a sign of God’s caring and healing for us. We are called to step into the water, so deep that we must depend on God’s grace to sustain us. Those who receive this water are invited to become sources of life for others, allowing God’s love to flow through them into the world.
And now, let’s take a deep breath, close our eyes, and imagine immersing ourselves in the living water while we listen to a song.
SONG: “Down in the River to Pray”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8nBNbk9DRk&list=RDU8nBNbk9DRk&start_radio=1
CALL TO WORSHIP
Please join me in the call to worship.
Leader: In the beginning, the Spirit of God hovered over the waters. And God called them good.
All: Come Holy Spirit and cleanse the waters.
Leader: The prophet saw a river flowing from the Temple, and wherever the river flowed, everything lived.
All: Come Holy Spirit and renew the face of the Earth.
Leader: Jesus cried out, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me… Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.”
All: Come, Holy Spirit and heal your people.
PRAYER OF THANKSGIVING
Let us join in prayer.
Leader: Creator God, we thank you for your love in all creation, and especially for your gift of water to sustain and cleanse all life. We offer our thanks for the waters that bring beauty to all that we enjoy. We give thanks and praise for all good lands, for the trees and pastures, for our plentiful crops, and for the living water that quenches them.
We praise you for giving us life through water, and for all waters everywhere. We especially praise you for the waters that sustain us in the parts of the world where we live, such as the Ohio River, the Belize River, the Metsemotihaba, the Galana, the Ganges, the Godavari, the Indus, the Krishna, the Yamuna, the Kaveri, and the Gandaki River.
We give you thanks, O God, for you bathe us in your forgiveness, grace, and love. You satisfy all who thirst and give us the life only you can give.
All: Amen
READING
Ezekiel 47: 9 and 12
“Swarms of living creatures will live wherever the river flows. There will be large numbers of fish, because this water flows there and makes the salt water fresh; so where the river flows everything will live […] Fruit trees of all kinds will grow on both banks of the river. Their leaves will not wither, nor will their fruit fail. Every month they will bear fruit, because the water from the sanctuary flows to them. Their fruit will serve for food and their leaves for healing.”
Leader: May the Word, as living water,
All: make everything live.
REFLECTION
Ezekiel’s vision is of water teeming with life. This presents water as a divine agent of renewal, justice, and hope, a life-giving force flowing from God’s sanctuary. In Ezekiel’s time, water was a symbol of divine presence and blessing. Great civilizations depended on mighty rivers such as the Nile, the Euphrates and the Tigris.
Ezekiel’s vision stands in sharp contrast to the reality of the water crisis we face. According to the United Nations, 1 in 4 people lack access to clean drinking water. As climate change intensifies and groundwater extraction increases, several countries are now reaching a so-called “point of water bankruptcy”, a condition marked by irreversible losses of water.
Although access to drinking water is a human right for all, the water crisis disproportionately affects vulnerable communities, future generations, and non-human life that has no voice in political or economic systems. Water pollution has implications related to social justice and equity. These many issues are leading to migration, pushing people into exile, with loss of homes and culture.
We are called to confront these injustices and to reject a worldview that treats water as a disposable resource. On every continent, inspired by our faith, Christians are acting: rivers are being restored, water sources are being protected from pollution and extractive industries – and arid lands are becoming green again. Cisterns are being built and water is being provided for parishes, villages, and health care centres. Within our congregation, we have harvested water for gardens and drinking; installed water-saving toilets and shower heads; and planted native plants that do not need as much water to live.
Close your eyes for a moment and picture in your mind how you use water in your life and reflect on where it comes from. Is the water source clean and healthy, or is it polluted? Are farmers using the water to irrigate? How many people rely on this water to drink? What other creatures depend on the water to survive? Is your water source plentiful, or are there times when you don’t have enough water? Take two minutes to reflect on these questions.
[Two minutes of quiet reflection.]
Let us come back together. Would three or four of you be willing to share your reflections about the living water in your lives?
INTERCESSIONS
Reader: God of living waters, today we pray for a wounded world where waters are sometimes exploited and polluted. We pray for places where plastics, toxins, and oil spills blacken creeks and wetlands, for communities whose fishing waters are contaminated and whose children drink from polluted streams. Heal what has been poisoned. Bring justice where profit has silenced truth.
All: Where water flows, Lord, let everything live.
Reader: We pray for oceans burdened by plastic and chemical waste; for coral reefs bleached by warming seas; for ocean life navigating through labyrinths of nylon and ghost nets; for the rivers that carry our pollution runoff. Turn our guilt into grace and our apathy into action. Make us a people who live justly and bring healing to every shore and stream.
All: Where water flows, Lord, let everything live.
Reader: We pray for communities where rising seas claim communities and ancestral lands, where saltwater invades freshwater wells, where graves are washed away with memory and belonging; for those who have contributed least to climate change, yet suffer first and most. Hold them in dignity and strengthen global resolve for justice.
All: Where water flows, Lord, let everything live.
Reader: We pray for rural villages where taps run dry or water is unsafe to drink; for children walking miles to collect water or women burdened by scarcity; for those whose sickness is caused by contaminated drinking water. We pray for people to be moved to action and use their power to create change. Stir governments, corporations, and communities to protect and share water justly.
All: Where water flows, Lord, let everything live.
CLOSING PRAYER
Let us close together in prayer.
Leader: May the God who sprung water from a rock, quenching the thirst of those who wandered in fear, spare us from the drought of a senseless life. May the God who flows from the wells of salvation, and who is Living Water to the foreigner, the stranger, and the unknown, keep us in peace. May the God who rolls on like a river, changing the course of the world with streams of righteousness, empower us to work for transformation. And may the blessing of our merciful God, the Creator, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, keep us and preserve us in eternal life.
All: Amen.
CLOSING SONG:
“O Living Water”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybFcivLo-jU&list=RDybFcivLo-jU&start_radio=1
[Service materials taken from the 2026 Season of Creation Celebration Guide.]