Two New Year Prayers for Church Services: A Collect and Prayers of the People

Are you thinking of adding New Year prayers in your church services? Below you'll find two complete, ready-to-use prayers: a collect for the New Year and responsive prayers of the people looking back at last year and forward at the new year. Both are free to use and modify for your congregation.

But first, why should churches mark the New Year in worship at all? The celebration of the New Year in most western countries doesn't seem particularly... holy. Raucous parties, immoderate consumption of alcohol, and a dropping brightly-lit ball don't really have much spiritual depth (though, admittedly, neither does a house-breaking man in a red suit or a bunny that lays... chicken eggs).

Yet, there is deep spiritual significance to the practice of marking the coming of the new year and it deserves to be marked in our common life as Christians.

Arguably, the right way to mark the coming of a new year is not really by sermonizing, but by incorporating it into worship which allows us to, as a community, bring it before God. To that end, we're going to offer a couple of prayers that you can use in your services this year to mark the new year as part of our walk with Christ.

Why Churches Should Mark the New Year in Worship

Celebrating the New Year May Be Deeper than You Think

Flipping a page on a calendar is nothing special—unless we remember what it means. We are creatures of time, marking it by regular "beats" in the tempo of our life: seconds, minutes, hours, days... up to the years they sum up to. Our metric for them is arbitrary, but that we have a metric for time's passage is not. It signifies the unfolding of our lives—and that they are finite. That a year is the metric we focus on makes sense. For many humans over most of human history, the season determined what you did—what you hunted, gathered, or farmed.

Our mortality is important to celebrating the new year. We only have so many cycles around the sun to do the things we need to do in. If we were assured that we (and those we love) would be around for the next one, celebrating it might not be as important. It is a bit like a birthday—but instead of celebrating the continuation of one life, it is a celebration of all our lives—one that may be our last.

This skeleton at the feast may have something to do with the frenzy of New Year's Eve celebrations. Perhaps there is an element of "eat, drink, and be merry" to it all. (Or maybe it's just an excuse to party.)

Recognizing our precarious grip on life is something deeply human—and that frequently crops up in Scripture—we are like grass, a breath, a vapor, a sigh, flowers in a field, a handbreadth, a passing shadow, water spilled on the ground, a fleeing runner, the flight of an eagle. The brevity of life comes up again and again, especially contrasted against the life of God, which does not end. Accordingly, as the psalmist says in Psalm 90:12, it is wisdom to "number our days."

So, it is not frivolous to celebrate the New Year, instead, it is part of recognizing that deep reality that we're only passing through (and so are all members of our community). The good we're called to do in this life, the sanctification we are to undergo, we have a short time to do it in. It's a reminder we need, because we can forget—we can get bogged down in the normal things in life that make us lose perspective about what really matters in the "handbreadth" between birth and death.

This calls for acknowledging the beginning of the year in our church services—which is often done in sermons—but less commonly in our liturgy. We think it's worth intentionally raising its profile in corporate prayer.

When to Use New Year Prayers in Your Service

How to Acknowledge Time Passing in Your Church

If churches should acknowledge the new year in our services—how?

Well, obviously a church-sponsored New Year's party isn't out of line, and it might shunt a few people away from spending the first day of the year bemoaning the bad choices of the night before.

However, if we are going to include New Year liturgy in our church services, which Sunday should we pick? Except in those years where January 1 is a Sunday, there will be a Sunday before and after the first day of the year, both of which are ripe for acknowledging the New Year.

Realistically, though, many of us will still be wanting to emphasize Christmas themes in the Sunday before New Year's Day, so it may make the most sense to highlight the New Year in our liturgy on the Sunday following the New Year (this year, it will be Jan. 4, 2026).

That was our focus in designing these prayers—we have in mind using them standing in the new year and looking forward and back.

Two New Year Prayers for Your Church Service

We designed two different prayers, for slightly different uses. The first is a collect or intercession, which has the five part structure: invocation, basis for petition, petition, purpose, and trinitarian close. The second is a responsive prayer designed as a full set of prayers of the people for the day.

Feel free to use or modify them however you would like in your service (see resources for details).

A Collect for the New Year

Though a little longer than many standard collects, this provides context for the new year, addressing God with a contrast of his eternality with our finitude, expressing thanks and asking not only for material sustenance, but for spiritual growth as disciples. It puts the "resolutions" that the congregation may be contemplating in light of our dependence on God to include us in his mission, rather than setting our own agenda.

Responsive Prayers of the People for the New Year

This prayers of the people is designed to be more participatory, allowing people space in church to look both forward and backward, putting our experiences in the context of faith.

By addressing God as creator and God of "new beginnings," we want to emphasize not only God's role in the past and his sovereignty, but his ongoing role in redeeming and sanctifying as we move into the future.

We then address the global picture, the intercessions we, our community, and the world need as we move into the new year, followed by a times for thanksgiving, laments, and remembrance, followed in turn by times for confronting our hopes and fears for the new year. We end with a trinitarian invocation of the persons of the Trinity, with their roles applied to the coming year.

As this is designed as prayers of the people, we wanted it to be participatory. It is designed responsively, but it also has times where the congregation is asked to offer individual prayers. These can be words spoken aloud or offered silently. It really depends on the size of the congregation and what it is most comfortable with.