Please pray - a couple of SD social problems highlighted

1. Budget cuts have hindered Tribal Police work on the reservations, and crime (especially gang activity) is way up. You can read the news here.

2. Prom season is near in South Dakota, and with it comes an increase in drunk driving and teen fatalitites. Police will be adding patrols and check points.

Please consider the challenging words of Romans 13:1-7, and from them draw words of prayer:

Let every person be subject to the governing authorities; for there is no authority except from God, and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists authority resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgement. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Do you wish to have no fear of the authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive its approval; for it is God’s servant for your good. But if you do what is wrong, you should be afraid, for the authority does not bear the sword in vain! It is the servant of God to execute wrath on the wrongdoer. Therefore one must be subject, not only because of wrath but also because of conscience. For the same reason you also pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, busy with this very thing. Pay to all what is due to them—taxes to whom taxes are due, revenue to whom revenue is due, respect to whom respect is due, honour to whom honour is due.

Almighty God, you institute and appoint earthly government to restrain the excesses of our sinful nature.

We pray that you will strengthen the hand of Tribal Police, the South Dakota Highway Patrol and all County Sheriffs and local Police Departments. Help them to protect the vulnerable and deter the dangerous.

We pray that you will reach the hearts of those in temptation, and that you will use the church to minister your saving fellowship, Word and sacraments to them.

We pray that you will give us honesty in paying our taxes and that you will guide those in public services to use financial resources wisely and responsibly in the work to which you have appointed them.

We ask these things in the Name of Jesus your Son, who with you, O Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.