Add PHBC prayers of confession

PHBC/PoCs/PoC-20240414.md

@@ -0,0 +1,38 @@
+Father,
+
+We, all of us here, were born as rebels against you.
+Though you have redeemed many of us here today, we still fall short of the life
+modeled by your Son.
+Our hearts and actions fall short of his love.
+
+We are rash to make commitments and often fickle in following through.
+We have hurt one another with carelessness and unnecessary words.
+We have failed to care for the harm we cause or fail to make amends.
+When we are sinned against, our hearts can struggle eek out the forgiveness
+that you have bountifully lavished on us.
+
+We have set our hopes in created things.
+We have turned your gifts that you meant to lead us to you into curses that
+lead us away from you.
+We set our hearts on stories, games, and gadgets.
+Our hearts are enamored with these things before any action reveals it, and we
+often fail to steer our hearts toward their deeper delight in you.
+
+We have been prideful.
+Even the good is often done in efforts to glorify ourselves apart from you.
+We think much of our image before others.
+
+We have not properly numbered our days to apportion them to your purposes.
+We do not treat our tasks as if they are from you.
+We strive for ends that you have made futile and vain.
+We strive to be placed well in a creation that is passing away, rather than for
+the new creation that we do no yet see, as if we do not believe you that there
+will be a new creation.
+
+But you are faithful when we are not.
+You will bring the new creation and deliver us from these bodies of death, from
+the flesh that serves sin.
+Until that time, please continue in patience with us.
+
+We ask this in the name of your righteous Son, Christ Jesus.
+Amen.

PHBC/PoCs/PoC-20240721.md

@@ -0,0 +1,44 @@
+Father,
+
+We come before you right now to recognize our sin.
+We come before you to confess that we have not lived according to your purpose
+and design for us.
+
+We have failed as your image and as stewards of your creation.
+We have failed in your call to exercise dominion over creation, and have
+submitted ourselves to worshiping creatures rather than you, our Creator.
+The creation that you made us to be benevolent stewards of suffers because we
+love it wrongly.
+You made us stewards of your creation, and we have brought death upon it.
+We twist and contort your image in the world, and then set our hopes in that
+contorted image.
+
+We have scorned your design for us.
+We are ashamed of your noble callings for us.
+
+We have trained our hearts to delight in and esteem mockeries of the Gospel,
+mockeries of your manifold wisdom.
+We allow our entertainment to breed in us, sympathy for and celebration of
+things you have declared detestable.
+
+Masquerading cowardice as compassion, we fail to speak the truth.
+Masquerading animosity as compassion, we use the truth for harm.
+In this we fail as Christ's body.
+We fail as the body of him who is your perfect image.
+
+We are in many ways disciples of our culture, rather than your Son.
+We are in many ways disciples of whichever popular faction of our time seems
+best to us, rather than your Word.
+Whether we are stalwart devotees of tradition, progress, or moderation, we too
+often set our course according to the ideas of men without ever truly
+consulting your Word.
+
+But by your Word, we know that you gave your Son for us, and so we come to you
+now seeking the peace with you that is bought by the blood of his cross, that
+we may share in his life.
+We ask your forgiveness for our sin, that you would deliver us both from the
+from the consequence of our sin and from our sin itself, that we might image
+you rightly.
+
+We ask this in the name of your righteous Son, Christ Jesus.
+Amen.

PHBC/PoCs/PoC-20241020.md

@@ -0,0 +1,43 @@
+Father,
+
+We were born in bondage to sin.
+Though sin was a malevolent master, we clung to it and regarded You as our
+enemy.
+But for those of us who are called by Your name, You have delivered us from
+that domain of darkness to the kingdom of Your beloved Son.
+
+Yet even now, we are forgetful of what You have delivered us from, and we look
+back to a life of not trusting You.
+We fail in devoting what You have given us to Your kingdom and glory.
+We at times even purpose Your gifts to our old master, sin.
+
+We forget what You have done for us, and thereby fail in having grateful
+hearts.
+We forget to ponder the enormity of what You have done for us.
+We neglect Your prescribed reminders of Your grace to us.
+Often, we partake only by mere accident of being here on the right day, and
+even then, too often with thoughtless boredom.
+
+In what we speak about, we are too often people marked by lesser loves, but not
+a love of Christ and his people.
+We should be overjoyed with Christ, such that we cannot stop talking about Him.
+But our excitement often falls short of looking to the ultimate Treasure.
+
+We live as though You have not made us stewards of the Truth that is
+foundational to why all things were created.
+We live as though You have not given us a great calling to live lives that
+speak incessantly to the great hope for which creation groans.
+
+We do not delight as we should in the King that You have given.
+We live for lesser kings, for sports, for movies, for games, for family.
+We live for our own kingdoms, for prestige and money, for our own
+accomplishments.
+We live for lesser delights.
+
+Now, on the grounds that You gave Your Son to redeem us, to pay the debt to
+Justice accrued by our sins, we ask that count our record clean.
+Based on Your promises, please allow us to take for ourselves the righteousness
+of Your Son, Jesus.
+
+It is in His great and holy name that we ask this.
+Amen.

PHBC/PoCs/PoC-20241215.md

@@ -0,0 +1,37 @@
+Father,
+
+We, mankind, have sinned against You.
+Through our sin, we have brought sickness, suffering, and death into the world.
+Not trusting You, we brought the misery of failing bodies and fading lives.
+In accord with our sinful nature, our bodies and desires would continually
+degrade without Your intervention.
+
+We have failed in seeking closeness with You.
+We neglect Your Word and we do not seek You in prayer as we should.
+We do not seek our rest in You.
+We often see pursuing closeness with You as a chore, as work rather than rest.
+We instead seek rest in our many hobbies and interest, in things good and in
+bad, we rest in Your good gifts and also in fruits You have not given us to eat
+of.
+We can even regard work as more restful than You, who should be our rest.
+
+We at times only seek You when we have problems.
+Even when we do have problems, we still often do not look to You to be our
+help.
+We come to You only as a last resort, or at other times we seek You only so we
+can cover over our laziness.
+
+We have not regarded with honor, the calling that You give to every Christian
+to steward the message of reconciliation.
+We regularly fail in joining You in carrying into the world the reconciliation
+that You brought forth Christ.
+If the first disciples who's ministry of reconciliation we are to continue had
+our zeal, we might never have heard of Christ.
+We live for ourselves, rather than Your Son.
+
+Now on the grounds that Christ became sin for us, that He died for us that we
+might live for Him, we come to You seeking that reconciliation.
+Please, receive us back, and help us to truly live Him who died for us.
+
+It is in His name that we ask this.
+Amen.

PHBC/PoCs/PoC-20250215.md

@@ -0,0 +1,43 @@
+Father,
+
+We come to you now to recognize that we have sinned against you.
+In accord with the nature of our birth, sin poured from hearts into our
+thoughts and actions.
+
+In turning from You, our Creator, we embraced a myriad of sins.
+In not trusting You, we blasphemed against Your goodness.
+We in turn have lied to cover and enable our sin.
+
+We regularly fail by neglecting our tasks, prioritizing frivolous achievements
+over the things that please You.
+We often regard Your Word with mere momentary interest, and we neglect bringing
+our troubles to You.
+We neglect our brothers, and do not pray for one another with diligence that we
+ought.
+
+We do not boast of our Lord as we should.
+We forget that You have given to the Church as her head, Him before whom even
+the angels bow down in worship.
+Our confidence in His power and glory and the supreme dignity of His name,
+our confidence in these things falls far short of what it should.
+We do not count it as our glory to be seen with Him, to be mocked with Him.
+
+We give ourselves to anger, which is the seed of murder.
+For our own unrighteous vindication, we relish our enmity with others.
+We try to take for ourselves and our own glory, the vengeance that rightly
+belongs to You and should vindicate You before any other.
+
+We have even set out to vindicate ourselves against Your Law.
+In Your love, You have sent many prophets to instruct us and warn us, but the
+heart of natural man would not receive it.
+Even when You sent us Your Son, the Adamic heart seethed at His witness against
+us, and we crucified the Lord of glory who forgives sins.
+
+Yet You did not count that act as unforgivable.
+You received the murder of Your Son as an atoning sacrifice to cover for the
+sins of all who would hail Him as King of kings.
+And so now, on this basis, we come to You seeking the reconciliation that is
+bought by His blood.
+
+We ask this in the most excellent name of Your Son, Our Lord, Christ Jesus.
+Amen.

PHBC/PoCs/PoC-20250601.md

@@ -0,0 +1,51 @@
+Father,
+
+We come to You as reconciled enemies.
+Our old hearts were terminally driven toward a hopeless war against You.
+We were unfailingly loyal to Adam's Rebellion.
+We were without hope, forever bound in the grip of sin and guilt.
+In every thought and deed, even when benevolent to man, we sought to dethrone
+You.
+But for Your grace, we had no capacity to turn to You.
+
+Unlike You, we, even now, fail to love our enemies as Your Son told us to.
+We return evil for evil, and sometimes even evil for good.
+We hold onto our grievances against others.
+We pine for justice, even against those for whom justice is already satisfied
+through the cross of Christ.
+
+We have wielded the tongue carelessly and brought reproach upon Your name.
+
+As the hands and feet of Your Son, who loves us, He would set us to the task of
+caring for one another.
+We neglect this task.
+
+We have played the sluggard and have not utilized our time well.
+We have prioritized trivial things over our responsibilities.
+We have given more thought to the things that please us than to the things that
+please You.
+
+When we do the things that You command, we often are consumed by pride.
+We focus wrongly on the excellence of our work when and fail to beseech You,
+that You would bless it with fruit.
+
+We take lightly the blood of Your Son.
+We give far to little thought the enormity of the price for which we were
+bought, when we turn back to the ways of the nature of our first birth.
+
+When we do well, we think ourselves sufficient before You.
+Though we would never put it to words, we adopt attitudes of thinking we
+are worthy of our spot at the Table, rather than recognizing that this Table is
+an indictment against us that proclaims our unworthiness.
+
+Now we ask that You would receive us again.
+We ask that You would count us among those for whom Christ is high priest.
+We who were washed now reaffirm our reliance on the blood of our King.
+Help us as we remember the price of our redemption, as we partake and thereby
+proclaim that it is for us that the Lamb died.
+Here we see our guilt and our pardon.
+We come to You knowing that our plea for mercy is worthless, but the plea of
+our great High Priest and His Sacrifice on our behalf is worthy.
+
+It is in Your righteous Son Christ Jesus that that we come to You.
+Amen.

PHBC/PoCs/PoC-20250727.md

@@ -0,0 +1,53 @@
+Father,
+
+We come to You as a people that has scorned Your holy Name, if not with our
+lips, then certainly with our actions.
+We were born with hearts that hated You.
+We knew better than to oppose You openly.
+We knew that You are unassailable and all powerful, and that all Your enemies
+we be ground into dust.
+Knowing these things, we invented ways to disguise our hate as love.
+We believed our own lies and thereby we comforted ourselves.
+And perhaps we even impressed others.
+But You were never fooled by our ruse.
+Our hearts were indeed far from You.
+
+For those of us who legitimately bear the name Christian, our greatest desire
+has been redirected to You, that we may love You truly.
+But in our flesh, we still desire many things inordinately and wrongly.
+We desire things that we should not.
+We esteem Your gifts more highly than You.
+
+We are too often an ungrateful people.
+Even on our most thankful days, we take for granted more blessings than we
+could count.
+
+We bend the truth.
+We lie both outright and subtly.
+
+We have our own standards that fall far short of Your unapproachable holiness.
+We pretend our standard is Your standard.
+We replace Your Word with vain books and podcasts.
+With eloquent words of men, whether voluminous or brief, we sweep the parts
+Your Word that we do not like away to an obscure corner and meditate on it no
+more.
+
+We esteem ourselves as living lives far more pleasing to You than we really do.
+We think our priorities are Your priorities, that our judgement is Your judgment.
+But our lives are stained tar black by sin.
+We sin in ways that seem small to us, but the natural consequences of which
+will be felt for generations to come in our families and in this church.
+Sins that we think nothing of today will make ruin of Your work here in
+generations to come.
+
+Still, in spite of our sheer abhorrence before You, You love us.
+You are patient with us.
+Unapproachable holiness stoops down in love for those who hated Him.
+The unassailable One came in flesh to bear our guilt and pay its great price,
+to be mocked, beaten, torn, and pierced by lowly creatures, so the we, though
+mired in sin, might have our hearts brought near to You.
+Father please, help us to live lives pleasing to You in all ways, that our
+lives may more closely resemble the record bequeathed to us by Your Son.
+
+It is in the name Your righteous Son, Christ Jesus that we pray.
+Amen.