LetUsPray is a weekly prayer litany published by the LCMS for both the three-year lectionary series and one-year lectionary series. Written to be used during the Prayer of the Church in the Divine Service, LetUsPray assists the congregation in its worship life. The prayers not only add variety through their use as a Proper, but also bring the worshiper back to the assigned readings for the day. For example, here is one of the prayers from the First Sunday in Advent Three-Year Series C:
Almighty God, we rejoiced with people who once welcomed Your Son with palms and hosannas, and we pray You to grant us a true faith, that we may welcome Him now as He comes to us in the bread that is His body and the cup that is His blood. Feed and nourish us in Christ, that we may renounce ungodliness and live righteous and holy lives to the praise of Your glory.
Lord, in Your mercy, hear our prayer.
Luke 19:28–40 is one of the lectionary readings, which is the Triumphal Entry account in Luke’s gospel. Here, the authors of the prayer have tied the joy of the crowd at the coming of the Lord Jesus to our joy at receiving Christ in the bread and wine of Holy Communion.
Importing LetUsPray Files into Lutheran Service Builder
Concordia Publishing House has made adding these prayers to your worship services easier than ever through Lutheran Service Builder. Previously, after the user had exported a formatted service from Lutheran Service Builder, the user then had to download the prayers, copy and paste them into the service, and make formatting adjustments. For example, the above prayer would have been turned into this:
P Almighty God, we rejoiced with people who once welcomed Your Son with palms and hosannas, and we pray You to grant us a true faith, that we may welcome Him now as He comes to us in the bread that is His body and the cup that is His blood. Feed and nourish us in Christ, that we may renounce ungodliness and live righteous and holy lives to the praise of Your glory.
P Lord, in Your mercy,
C hear our prayer.
Working with presentation software increased the laboriousness of the task. But now, the prayers can be directly imported into Lutheran Service Builder, simplifying everything at a stroke.
Here is how to import LetUsPray files:
- Go to music.cph.org/lutheran-service-builder/downloads. (Bonus: you can download the LSBSymbol font from this page, also.) Click the appropriate button based on the date and series. The file will download as a .zip file. Select where to save the file on your computer.
- Right-click on the file and select Extract All. Select a destination, then click Extract.
- Open the online Lutheran Service Builder. Click the settings cog, then select Import from LSBX files…. Select the file and click Open.
- On the home screen in Lutheran Service Builder, select a service, then click Plan this service. In the top right corner, click Prepare Bulletin. If you have not already done so, select the Bulletin Format and Order of Service to use. Scroll down to Prayer of the Church.
- In the top navigation, select Insert, and click on Element. Add the new element below the Prayer of the Church heading. In the list that appears on the right side of the screen, select the LetUsPray file from the Uncategorized header.
The LetUsPray files can also be imported into Lutheran Service Builder 2.0 (the desktop version).
If you run into any issues with either the online Lutheran Service Builder or Lutheran Service Builder 2.0, contact the CTS software support team at support@cts.cph.org or (800) 346-6120.
