Oxford High School Shooting
Every day that our country does not pass safer gun laws is another day that we fail our children. This tragedy didn’t have to happen. --Former Rep. Gabby Giffords
Photo: CCN.com
As we enter Advent in a year of record gun sales and gun violence, we reap the consequences of easy access to powerful guns by those who would harm others and themselves. Four children are dead in Oxford, Michigan, seven are wounded and an entire community has described itself as "broken."
Below is a liturgy for use in your church this Sunday, which could also be adapted as a pastoral prayer. You could plan a focus later in Advent around the Oxford shooting and Dec. 14, which is the ninth anniversary of the Sandy Hook School shooting.
Below the liturgy is information about
Guns 2 Gardens, a new movement that the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship is helping congregations to build. In the absence of federal legislation to prevent gun violence for more than a generation, can the church become a safe site for Americans to remove unwanted guns from homes and communities ---and turn them into garden tools? Inspired by the vision of Isaiah 2:4, can your church become a place of healing, peace and a light that shines in the darkness of gun violence?
Litany of Remembrance
Leader 1: Let us remember all who have been harmed by violence.
We acknowledge the strength of those who survive
and of those struggling to heal.
For their sake and for ours, we commit ourselves
to building each other up and to healing – together.
Leader 2: Let us remember the families and loved ones
of those who have died from gun violence.
We acknowledge their pain and their deep grief.
They too, are part of our community,
and need our love and help towards healing.
Leader 3: Let us remember the perpetrators,
and the families of those who commit violence.
We acknowledge that their lives, too, are devastated
and their hopes dashed.
For their sake and for ours, we remember
that pain goes in many directions from each act of violence.
All: We will stand up to violence.
We stand together expressing our unity,
our connection to each other and to the divine;
our hope for healing and for transformation.
Let the Spirit of our Creator move through us.
Help us to transform and heal our communities.
And let us begin by transforming ourselves. Amen.
(from Vigils Against Violence by Pat Long and Vandy Bradow)
Suggested Hymn by Carolyn Winfrey Gillette: "God, We Have Heard It"
HERE
Find more worship suggestions under "Pastoral Resources" in PPF's "Gun Violence Prevention Congregational Toolkit"
HERE.
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