Saturday: Word For The Day

Saturday 16th January

Prayer Week

Worship, the coming together of souls, the place where we meet, where anything seems possible. I have put the spirit of worship in the heart of man, a place of connection that goes beyond understanding. A place where your soul sings, where you see me, where anything is possible. A place that recharges and recreates, where you can see beyond your current circumstances and catch a glimpse of my character, of my love, and possibilities in my spirit.

But then you disconnect, you go back to your world, you take your eyes off me and you forget. What if you could remain in that place, take me with you and keep your eyes fixed on Jesus? I created you for a lifestyle of worship, you don’t need to come and go, I am always with you, I never leave you. My love and my presence are always available for you. Worship is looking at me and letting your heart respond.

In a time where we are not meeting corporately how can we keep our gaze fixed on Jesus? How can we engage with worship without church as we know it? What we focus on increases in our hearts and minds. The Bible says Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. We worship him not because he needs it but because we are spiritual beings, we need him. When we see him we see the way forward, the truth in our circumstances and the life he has for us and with us.

God knows what we need, we need the rock that is higher than I. He is awesome, powerful, wonderful, he is our creator, the one who flung stars into space and defeated the evil one, he is our father and our friend. When we struggle give him Glory, when we weep give him Glory, when we laugh give him Glory, when we work give him Glory. There is always more to be found in him, strength, hope, joy, a future, things that are beyond ourselves. There is always more in Jesus, look to him and worship him and you will find the more. Keep looking back to him, find ways to fix your eyes on him, find your way to worship.

Heavenly Father thank you for giving us worship, in this season please reveal to me how I can worship, how I can connect with you, I choose to worship you despite my circumstances. Amen

John 14:6

“Jesus answered I am the way the truth and the life”

Psalm 61:2+3

“I call as my heart grows faint; lead me to the rock that is higher than I. For you have been my refuge, a strong tower against the foe”

1 Chronicles 16:29+30

“Worship the Lord in the splendour of his holiness....let the heavens rejoice, let the earth be glad, let them say amount the nations “ The Lord reigns””

Friday: Word For The Day

Friday 15th January

Prayer Week

Prayer

“ I desire intimacy. Prayer is a beautiful intimate time where I hear what is on your heart. Your hearts cry reaches me always and I love it when you invite me in to that place.”

Revelation 5:8

“...and they were holding golden bowls full of incense which are the prayers of the saints”

“I invite you to come up here when you pray, to come and see things from my perspective. I love to see your heart and I love to share mine with you. Come and see what I see, come and see what makes me weep and let’s join together in praying for those things.”

Isaiah 55:11

“So is my word that goes out from my mouth. It will not return to me empty, but I’ll accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.”

“And never forget that I pray for you too! I know your struggles and the things you long for but I also see the things I long for you, to see you walk into, to find freedom and the things that will make you fly.”

Romans 8:26-27

“ we do not know what we ought to pray for but the spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.....the spirit intercedes for all the saints in accordance with Gods will”

Romans 8:34

“ Christ Jesus who died, more than that, was raised to life - is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us”

Remember

Prayer is intimacy, dialogue and partnership with God.

He wants to know and bless what we care about and we want to know and care about what he wants to bless.

Father in prayer week help me to see prayer how you see it. Thank you that you love to see what moves my heart, please show me what moves yours. Amen

Family Communion

If you are thinking through taking communion as a family here are some helpful pointers for you.

Being isolated at the moment means that we can not gather as a church community to share communion. While this may being some challenges in going about this virtually as a church family, it actually provides a real opportunity and pleasure to be able to do this as a family at home. I recognise that we may well be led through a virtual communion in one of our Sunday services fairly soon and so I wanted you to feel like your have had time to think about this in advance.

Firstly, keep it simple. Your children are at different ages so use language that is appropriate for that and how sensitive they may be.

Frame it by linking to Christmas; something like, this is when God’s amazing plan for us to have a close two way relationship started. Then say that Jesus lived on earth and showed and taught us how to live to help us to understand life better. He also showed us signs and won-ders to show us he was God’s son. When the time was right he died. His body was broken so he could bridge the gap between us and God. He did this because he loves us so much.

Focus on one thing about communion. One concept is enough for children and one response too. For example, you could look at separation from God and then relationship restored, re-membrance, a chance to commit to something or to let something go, to say sorry or forgive . Think about hearts being in the right place.

There is no magic involved with the bread being his body and wine or juice being his blood. They are just symbols that Jesus gave us to help us remember the most important thing he did for us. Remember it’s not about having a snack!

Keep it fairly light and use the simple words “Jesus’ body broken for you” and “Jesus’ blood shed for you”

How you want to pass out the bread and wine is up to you!

Thursday: Word For The Day

Thursday 14th January

Prayer Week

I have Made you to function as a unit, the body of Christ, the Ecclesia. Now this is difficult when you are torn apart. How can the bond remain strong? Does it matter? I would suggest it does. You may have heard of the illustration of a single piece of coal being taken from the fire and going out, that describes someone stepping out of fellowship but it doesn’t work here in lockdown. I will not let your flame go out. You cannot always gather as a physical body but you are part of my body, part of my vine, you are plugged into me, remain in me and I will remain in you. I have not left you as an orphan, I have not left you alone. You are not loved less by me or by your church body just because you cannot gather.

You say these are unprecedented times, they are but they are not times where I have left you or the church. I have not been taken by surprise, I have plans for this season and for you in it as much as I have plans in a “normal” season. My power hasn’t changed, my nature hasn’t changed but don’t put me on hold, don’t hold your breath until you come out the other side. A lot has fallen off in the shaking but what remains? What is valuable to you? What is valuable to me? You are still my church, my bride. You still need me you still need each other. Build now on sure foundations things that will remain in this season and the ones to come. What is important to you? What are you willing to work for to see come into being? How can you participate in connecting with the body? In connecting with me?

- Ask God to show you some one or something that you can connect with this week.

- Who is the church to you? Who is the body? Who needs you and who do you need?

- Pray for the scattered body to find new ways to unite. Ask God for strategy.

John 15:4, 11+12

“Remain in me and I will remain in you.

No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me....

I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.”

Romans 10:6-8

“ Do not say in your heart who will ascend to Heaven( that is to bring Christ down) or who will descend into the deep?( that is to bring Christ up from the dead) But what does it say? “ the word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart”

Isaiah 52:7

“ How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation”

Wednesday: Word For The Day

Wednesday 13th January

Prayer Week

“Stop and listen.

Turn your ear to me and be attentive to my cry. I created you with the ability to hear my voice and I created many ways I can speak to you. Through your conscious and unconscious thought, through someone else, through a song on the radio, an advert at the side of the road, the bible, through nature. You don’t have to worry about being able to hear me. I created in you the ability to hear my voice, even people who don’t know me hear my voice, I have no trouble with talking. I can speak in your dreams, when you’re not even trying to listen to me. But you can choose to tune in, to ask. I love it when you tune in to the finer detail, I love to converse with you and hear what you have to say.”

God created us for relationship with him. He already had a relationship with Jesus and the Holy Spirit but he wanted to include us in that, we see this in John 17:20-26 where Jesus is desperate to share the Godheads relationship with us.

The bible tells us in Genesis 1 that we are made in Gods image, therefore like he can talk and listen, we can talk and listen. We are all created with the ability to listen to him and to talk to him. When Adam and Eve committed their famous sin, God instantly knew about it, yet he still came looking for them to go for a walk and a talk. They hid from him because they felt ashamed. He still wanted relationship with them and the rest of the bible shows God trying to draw a people back to himself, eventually sending Jesus.

He is still trying to talk to us, still wanting to have a relationship with us, fear and shame doesn’t mean he can’t reach us, Adam and Eve still heard him. Lack of experience doesn’t mean we can’t hear him. Samuel heard God but didn’t recognise it as Gods voice but God kept calling anyway. We don’t need to be good and we don’t need to be good at listening, God talks and we can hear him. Of course we can get better!

We can create space for him where we tune out some of the worlds noise. As with all relationships we can choose how much time we invest and how much we listen, it’s very hard to have a relationship with someone you won’t listen to or won’t speak to. We are in a relationship with a God is 100% committed to us, who absolutely loves us, he has lots of power, lots of creativity and lots of time to sow into talking to you. He created you to need spiritual nourishment as well as physical nourishment, prayer week is a great chance to get ourselves spiritually nourished, to turn to God and hear his voice.

How does God speak to you? Ask him, spend time this week inviting him to speak to you, through dedicated time and when you’re out and about. Ask him questions about things you want to know, things that are troubling you, things you can pray for, things he wants to show you.

Revelation 3:20

“Here I am I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door I will come in and eat with him and he with me”

Romans 10:17

“Faith comes from hearing the message and the message is heard through the word of Christ”

Deuteronomy 8:3

“Man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the

Lord”

1 Samuel 3:10

“And the Lord came and stood calling as at the other times “Samuel, Samuel” And Samuel said speak Lord for your servant hears”

How to Read the New Testament Well

A Summary of the recent Bible study course run by Dave Roderick

If you have been tuning in for our online Sunday services or read any of Dave’s weekly emails you will know that he recently ran a course on reading the New Testament, complete with zoom meetings.

Don’t worry if you missed out on a chance to get involved, we have stored all of Dave’s notes and recordings of the zoom meeting here so that you can catch up on all of the good stuff that was discussed.

Week One - Introduction, Gospels and Acts

Week Two - Letters

Week Three - Revelation