There is a difference between adoration and thanksgiving.  When we adore God, our focus, our delight, is on who God is.  In thanksgiving, we are grateful for what God has done for us.  When we adore we are mindful that:

  

God is infinite               - in grace, holiness, mercy, compassion

God is living                 - the Trinity: creator, redeemer, perfector - dynamic and relational

God is holy                  - purity, love and perfection all stem from God

God is ever present    - always here

God is all-powerful     - more powerful than any other forces at work in the world

God is all-knowing     - knowing all truth - past, present, future

God is creator              - of all, from this tiny globe to the universe and all that lies beyond

God is love                  - love which takes the initiative, which transforms and unites

God is just                   - calling for perfection, justice and peace

God is patient              - guiding towards perfect love

  

Because this is God we are contemplating, a short list like this offers merely a hint of who God is.  In prayers of adoration we remind ourselves that this is the God we adore.  The prayer is addressed to God, but we are not reminding God about God's nature!

  

Here is part of a prayer of adoration by Judy Jarvis and Don Pickard, from ‘Companion to the Revised Common Lectionary - Volume 3: all age worship, Year B' published by Epworth, a helpful set of volumes by various authors:

  

God of history, we worship you.

You chose a nation to work for you.

You called prophets to tell people what you wanted.

You sent your chosen one, Jesus, to show people what you wanted.

We marvel that you made known your purposes for humanity.

  

This extract has an opening statement, three descriptions ([perversely], of what God has done) and then a statement of adoration.  These two respected authors show that there are no hard and fast rules about prayers of adoration, but their reflections lead not to thanksgiving but to an expression of delight.  That is what is at the heart of adoration.

  

Notice too, in that extract, the cumulative poetic pattern of the three descriptions which make the delight of the final line so effective.

  

 

Each one of us makes foolish choices and takes unwise, even rash action that causes those around us to suffer, that brings distress and pain to God.  This is true for us as individuals, as a [church] community, as a nation.  It is true for all humanity.

  

A prayer of confession gives us the opportunity to admit to God and to ourselves the way we have been (as individuals, as a [church] community, as a nation, as humankind).  Such a prayer cannot be so specific that it appears to condemn.  Instead, it should provide an opportunity for worshippers to recognise their own sin and the sin of the world.

  

Key words in a prayer of confession might be ‘foolishness', thoughtlessness', ‘neglect', ‘failure', ‘selfishness', ‘carelessness'.  There could be familiar words like ‘sinned in thought, word and deed'.  Church liturgies (like Methodist Worship Book) offer a range of ways of expressing the ways we have turned away from God.

  

Along with our confession we need to express our need for forgiveness (even though our behaviour does not merit forgiveness) and our readiness to turn back to God (to repent). 

  

 

What happens next is crucial.  All too often, a prayer of confession can become a vague hope that we'll all try a bit harder in the coming days.  When this happens, preachers and leaders of worship omit to share the heart of the Christian good news.  Somehow or other, some find it difficult to say:

It is not the preacher of the leader of worship who is forgiving sins, but God in Christ.  We should not be coy about this, but proclaim this good news in our prayers of confession.  This is the ‘declaration of forgiveness' that enables worshippers to adore and to respond with love and thankfulness to God's word.  Here is God's cleansing of us.  Here is God making us new.

  

It is usually (but not always) helpful for a prayer of confession and a declaration of forgiveness to be an early part of an act of worship.  Whether we are using set prayers or choosing from an anthology or praying extempore prayer, confession needs a declaration of God's forgiving love that transforms and renews, uplifts and enables.

LWPT bookshop has resources for prayers.