Worship Resources

A litany is a form of prayer shaped by call and response. Traditionally, a leader voices a series of petitions, statements, or affirmations, and the congregation responds with words that echo, affirm, or extend the prayer.

This ancient pattern of prayer is found across many faith traditions. It invites the whole community to speak together, embodying shared responsibility and shared hope. A litany is more than words spoken aloud—it is a practice of belonging. Each voice, whether leader or responder, weaves into the collective prayer of the people.

For the Children’s Sabbath, litanies lift up children’s voices, struggles, and hopes. They help congregations proclaim God’s call to justice, name the realities children face, and affirm the sacred truth that every child is beloved and worthy.

When using a litany:

Encourage the leader to read with a clear proclamation.

Invite the congregation to respond with conviction, energy, and commitment.

Involve children, youth, and adults in leading different parts to model intergenerational prayer.

In this way, the litany becomes not only spoken prayer but also an act of communal witness and courage on behalf of children.

(adapted from Kaitlin B. Curtice. Native: Identity, Belonging, and Rediscovering God. Brazos Press. Grand Rapids, MI. 2020. 176-177)

In the spirit of call and response, the leader should read these words with a sense of joyful proclamation and encourage the congregation to respond in a way that embodies these words as a response to God’s holy command.

Leader: All of our children belong to all of us because that’s what kinship does. It’s a reminder of that dust we came from and of that dust we will return to.

People: It’s a reminder that while we are here, we make room for the next generation to spring up from the soil and create a new landscape.

Leader: So our Native children lead us.

People: Our children of color lead us. Our daughters lead us. Our queer and nonbinary children lead us. Our disabled children lead us.

Leader: The ones that are forgotten lead us. The ones that are told to be quiet at the dinner table lead us, and if we are smart, we will let them lead.

People: And if we are smart, we will see that we all return to Mystery, to Kche Mnedo, and we are simply to learn what we can along the way, to embody humility, to stand up to bullies and show them the way to love and peace.

All: And if we are smart, we will let them lead. If we are smart, we will let the children lead us and lead us across the threshold of today into tomorrow. Amen.

Prayers are provided here to guide congregations in intercession, confession, and hope. They can be used as written, adapted for your tradition, or placed throughout the service.

Great God,
guard the laughter of children.
Bring them safely through injury and illness
so they may live the promises you give.
Do not let us be so preoccupied with our purposes
that we fail to hear their voices,
or pay attention to their special vision of the truth;
but keep us with them,
ready to listen and to love,
even as in Jesus Christ you have loved us,
your grown-up, wayward children. Amen.

[From Presbyterian Church (USA) The Book of Common Worship]


O God, help us to recover our hope for our children’s sake.
Help us to recover our courage for our children’s sake.
Help us to recover our discipline for our children’s sake.
Help us to recover our ability to work together for our children’s sake.
Help us to recover our values for our children’s sake.
Help us to recover a spirit of sacrifice for our children’s sake.
Help us to recover our faith in You for our children’s sake.

(CDF Founder and President Emerita Marian Wright Edelman, Guide My Feet)

God of all and not just some,
We confess that when some have too much and others too little,
we have not proclaimed your justice.
When some have been surrounded by love and others excluded,
we have not reached out with your radical inclusion.
When some have been set on easy paths forward and others left to stumble over obstacles,
we have not cleared the way as Jesus admonished.
When some are nurtured and others abandoned,
we have not embraced them with your love.
When some are encouraged and others disheartened,
we have not spoken your word of hope.
Forgive us, we pray, for the ways we have not lived up to
the scope of your vision,
the depth of your love,
the wideness of your embrace.
God of all and not just some,
help us to embody your love and speak your justice
until every child may live into the fullness of the promise
for which you created them.
We pray these things in the name of Jesus who came for all and not just some. Amen.

Oh I Am Who I Am,
Hear the cries of Your children
who are ravaged by violence, poverty, racism and neglect,
scared, profiled, arrested, and imprisoned by those in authority
ignored by those with power as they languish in crumbling schools and neighborhoods
labeled often by some entrusted with their education as dumb, disruptive, retarded, and failures marginalized by those who vote and are elected because they cannot make campaign contributions resented by some of those forced to care for them in our often inhumane child welfare and juvenile justice systems.
Hear our cries for our children, all-powerful God.
Fight their battles, turn the hearts and transform the actions of those who will not let our children escape the darkness of violence and drugs and poverty.
Open the Red Sea to their opportunity.
Send them Your manna in the wilderness and
lead us and our children into the promised land.

(By Marian Wright Edelman)


O God, forgive and transform our rich nation where small babies die of cold quite legally.
O God, forgive and transform our rich nation where small children suffer from hunger quite legally.
O God, forgive and transform our rich nation where toddlers and school children die from guns sold quite legally.
O God, forgive and transform our rich nation that lets children be the poorest group of citizens quite legally.
O God, forgive and transform our rich nation that lets the rich continue to get more at the expense of the poor quite legally.

Merciful God, we have not loved you with our whole hearts.  In your unfailing compassion and mercy, we ask that you forgive us our sins, known and unknown, of omission and commission, of things done and left undone;

Children are an inheritance from You, Mother God. You have entrusted these precious gifts to our care. Forgive us for not honoring them with the ways that we devalue them by letting them go hungry, unhoused, bullied and body-shamed for being made in your image. 

Give us the courage and holy boldness to bear witness to their real lived experiences and to take up the mantle of justice in ways that promote thriving and flourishing for children.

On this weekend celebrated as Children’s Sabbaths in congregations across the land, trusting that God hears both the prayers we offer in the silence of our hearts and those we voice together, let us pray for the Church and for the world that we might do the work of justice to reflect your kin(g)dom.

In the holy name of our Sustaining Creator, we offer this prayer to You. Amen.