Banquet Invocation

Rev.  F. Peter Brinkman offers the Opening Prayer at the 23rd Annual Luncheon

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The Lord be with you.

Lord our God, we praise and thank you, for you have triumphed gloriously.  We have again been to the tomb. And we know that the grave is empty! 

So we come to you on this special day to beseech you to continue to pour out your special blessings on the ministry of the Lutheran Association of Missionaries and Pilots U.S.   We have been delivered from our respective wildernesses.  We have come to Elim where there are seventy palm trees and twelve springs of water—more shade and more cool and renewing water than we will ever need.  And still we are tempted to go down to Egypt for our solutions and slow to seek your counsel.

Here we are again, Lord.  We know why we are here.  We want to hear the stories of this ministry, and we know we are being asked to help in whatever way we can.  Remind us again that we will be your witnesses here in Jerusalem, in Judea, in Samaria and to the ends of the earth.  Remind us also again that you do not call the equipped but you equip those whom you call.  Open our hearts and spirits to your call and use us each one in this special ministry.

All that we are and have is a gift from you.  Renew us for the work.  Energize and enable us by the presence of your spirit.  “Come then Lord, and help your people, bought with the price of your own blood.  And bring us with your saints to glory everlasting.”

And now we thank you for the friends who are beside us, for the love that is between us, for the food that is before us, and for your presence among us.

Surely to this prayer for this day all God’s people can say a resounding AMEN!