iGod

Prayer for Saturday

 

Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory in the heavens.

 

READ AND REFLECT: 2 Corinthians 5:1-10

For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling, because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked. For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. Now the one who has fashioned us for this very purpose is God, who has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.

Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. For we live by faith, not by sight. We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So we make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive what is due to us for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.

 

MEDITATE

“For I do not seek to understand in order that I may believe, but I believe in order to understand. For this also I believe - that unless I believe I shall not understand.” ― Anselm of Canterbury

 

PRAY

• For our outgoing Vineyard National Directors John and Eleanor Mumford and their successors John and Debby Wright
• For the Right Reverend Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury
• For all schools, prisons and workplace chaplains in East Anglia

 

PRAYER

Dear Lord, thank you for giving us the confidence to know that you have our lives safely in your hands and have provided for all our needs. Although our bodies and minds will take a battering on earth, it is outweighed by the glorious prize of being eternally with you in your Father’s house. Thank you for the gift of the Holy Spirit and for always being present with us. In you will I trust for my future. In you will I hope for my today. Amen.

 

 

Prayer for Friday

 

Not to us, Lord, not to us, but to your name be the glory, because of your love and faithfulness.

 

READ AND REFLECT: 1 John 3:1-7

See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.

Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness. But you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins. And in him is no sin. No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him.

Dear children, do not let anyone lead you astray. The one who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous.

 

MEDITATE

“To fall in love with God is the greatest romance; to seek Him the greatest adventure; to find Him, the greatest human achievement.” – St Augustine

 

PRAY

• For the elderly and frail
• For the inspiration to love our community with sacrificial love
• For revival in the UK and Ireland

 

PRAYER

Father, it is a wonder what you have made of me in Jesus. It is the hope that I cling to today, and the comfort that satisfies my heart. I know that I am a loved child in your holy family, rescued at a great cost through the resurrection power of Jesus. As a child I run into your presence, knowing that I am protected and provided for, guarded and guided. How awesome is that? How great is your lavish love. Amen. 

 

 

 

Prayer for Thursday

 

The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it.

 

READ AND REFLECT: Isaiah 40:27-31

Why do you complain, Jacob?

Why do you say, Israel,

“My way is hidden from the Lord;

my cause is disregarded by my God”?

Do you not know?

Have you not heard?

The Lord is the everlasting God,

the Creator of the ends of the earth.

He will not grow tired or weary,

and his understanding no one can fathom.

He gives strength to the weary

and increases the power of the weak.

Even youths grow tired and weary,

and young men stumble and fall;

but those who hope in the Lord

will renew their strength.

They will soar on wings like eagles;

they will run and not grow weary,

they will walk and not be faint.

 

MEDITATE

“Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace.

Where there is hatred, let me sow love,

Where there is injury, pardon;

Where there is doubt, faith;

Where there is despair, hope;

Where there is darkness, light;

And where there is sadness, joy.

 

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek

to be consoled as to console,

to be understood as to understand,

to be loved, as to love.

 

For it is in giving that we receive,

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.”

― Francis of Assisi

 

PRAY

• For local families and individuals living in a crisis of poverty
• For our local police, fire fighters and other emergency services
• For greater knowledge and experience of God’s forgiveness today.

 

PRAYER

Forgiving God it seems sometimes you ask the impossible of me. Left to my own devices I’d prefer to keep those who hurt me away from your throne of grace. Your grace humbles. Please challenge my ways and help me see your world as you do. Help me understand what it is to live a life of sacrifice and total abandonment in your precious son, Jesus. Amen.

 

 

Prayer for Wednesday

 

Come let us bow down and bend the knee:

let us kneel before the Lord our maker

 

READ AND REFLECT: Jeremiah 29:10-14

This is what the Lord says: ‘When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfil my good promise to bring you back to this place. For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you,’ declares the Lord, ‘and will bring you back from captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you,’ declares the Lord, ‘and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile.’

 

MEDITATE

Christ be with me,

Christ before me,

Christ behind me,

Christ in the heart of everyone who thinks of me,

Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me,

Christ in every eye that sees me,

Christ in every ear that hears me.

- Prayer of St Patrick

 

PRAY

• For our school teachers and all those in education
• For our Planet Vineyard team
• For us to all grasp our eternal destiny in Christ

 

PRAYER

God in heaven and earth, thank you that you have provided a way for me to discover you. Thank you for the gift of your son, Jesus, and that through him I can always find your loving arms waiting for me, longing to hold me up when I am heavy with life. Continue to show me your perfect ways and put a desire in me to follow you with utmost obedience. All glory, honour and power are yours. Amen.

 

 

Prayer for Tuesday

 

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son,

and to the Holy Spirit,

as it was in the beginning, is now,

and will be forever. Amen

 

READ AND REFLECT: Romans 12:1-2

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God – this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will.

 

MEDITATE

Prayer is an act of love; words are not needed. Even if sickness distracts from thoughts, all that is needed is the will to love. – St. Teresa of Avila

 

PRAY

• For James Cartlidge, our newly elected MP for South Suffolk
• For unity in thought and action among Babergh and Sudbury town councillors
• For our hearts to be softened to enable us to forgive those who have hurt us most

 

PRAYER

Dear Lord Jesus, I want to know your peace and close presence throughout my day. Wherever I find myself, whoever I am talking to, I want to be obedient to the promptings of your Holy Spirit and ready to give a reason for the hope that is within me. May I end my day rejoicing that your will has been done in me, and in your world. Thank you. Amen. 

Prayer for Monday

 

Our mouths were filled with laughter, our tongues with songs of joy… The Lord has done great things for us, and we are filled with joy.

 

READ AND REFLECT: John 14:15-21

‘If you love me, keep my commands. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you for ever – the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Before long, the world will not see me any more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. On that day you will realise that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them.’

 

MEDITATE

“Each day holds a surprise. But only if we expect it can we see, hear, or feel it when it comes to us. Let's not be afraid to receive each day's surprise, whether it comes to us as sorrow or as joy It will open a new place in our hearts, a place where we can welcome new friends and celebrate more fully our shared humanity.” - Henri Nouwen

 

PRAY

• For unity among all Christian denominations
• For those without fathers and mothers
• For spiritual renewal and refreshment of the soul

 

PRAYER

Dear Father, thank you for making me your child, but show me your ways so that I may experience the full blessing of that relationship with you. Send your Spirit to me today. Take this truth and wrap it around me like a father’s arm would embrace a child. May your love grip my heart and change my wrong views about myself. Help me to see what you see in me. For the glory of your son’s name. Amen.

 

 

Prayer for Sunday

One thing I have asked of the Lord, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life; to behold the beauty of the Lord and to seek Him in His temple.

 

READ AND REFLECT: Psalm 100

Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth.

Worship the Lord with gladness;

    come before him with joyful songs.

Know that the Lord is God.

    It is he who made us, and we are his;[a]

    we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.

Enter his gates with thanksgiving

    and his courts with praise;

    give thanks to him and praise his name.

For the Lord is good and his love endures for ever;

    his faithfulness continues through all generations.

 

 MEDITATE:

“Let nothing disturb you,
Let nothing frighten you,
All things are passing away:
God never changes.
Patience obtains all things
Whoever has God lacks nothing;
God alone suffices.”

-- St. Teresa of Avila

 

PRAY:

• A breakthrough in the financial crisis in Greece
• Single parents struggling to bring up children
• Our churches in Sudbury and the surrounding areas

 

PRAYER:

Dear Lord Jesus, thank you for rescuing me and bringing me safely into your heavenly places. For giving me a hope and a future. For the privilege of being able to enter into your throne of grace. What a joy! All glory and honour are yours for ever and ever. Amen.

Oh, for the love of coffee!

It is no secret, Vineyard churches loves their freshly brewed coffee before the start of their services. Socialising is a big thing for us. We know that by putting a cup of coffee into someone’s hands it helps them relax and feel welcomed. But recently my love for a cup of coffee went to another level.

One Saturday morning my wife and I visited the London Coffee Festival in Brick Lane, London. Surrounded by hipsters and foreign students we entered into the strange, mystical world of coffee. I discovered just how amazing is the humble coffee bean and what it goes through to end up in our cups. So here’s how it gets to us.

Coffee trees are only grown above a certain sea level and in tropical regions. They also only start bearing fruit after 4-5 years. Interestingly, much of the world's coffee is grown by small farmers on five to seven acres of land and is harvested by hand.

After the ‘coffee cherries’ are picked they are ‘depulped’, a process that tears off the outer layer of the coffee flesh, exposing the two coffee seeds inside.

This is followed by a period of fermentation, which can take anything from four hours to three days depending on the country, altitude and humidity. The coffee is then dried, taking a further three to five days or almost two weeks, depending on weather. Only when the coffee has been dried down to 12% moisture and a thin shell, called parchment, encapsulates each coffee bean, can it be put into coffee sacks and be exported.

When the coffee reaches our shores it is delivered to roasting companies. Roasters need to have a strong attention to detail, excellent sensory skills and sensory memory. The goal in coffee roasting is to enhance the qualities of the green coffee beans and to develop them to their fullest potential.

The last stage of the journey is, of course, the café. This is where trained baristas come into their own. The coffee has to be ground just right and brewed at just the right pressure. The milk needs to be steamed, but not too hot - otherwise it can make the coffee taste acidic or bitter. And then, only then, can you sit down to enjoy it. You can’t help thinking that this is a lot of effort to get our daily ‘hit’! But grateful I am.

The world we live in is a humbling, awe-inspiring experience of beauty and grandeur. It is something to be savoured and tasted, again and again. We have learnt to take the earth’s riches and do incredible things with them - like make a cup of coffee.

In the first book of the Bible, Genesis, we see how God puts his full creativity to work in the world. Afterwards he reflects: “God saw all that he made was very good.” We get just around 800 words to describe this incredible act of love, but they are all words designed to permeate our hearts and imaginations and cause us to ponder deeply on our reason for being. And the more we do, the more significant our relationship with God becomes for us.

Just like your cup of coffee, life doesn’t just randomly happen to make itself, there is a creator behind it, along with a complex process filled with passion, love and dedication to the end user – us.

The philosopher Wittgenstein once poured a cup of freshly ground coffee and asked his students to describe the smell. When they failed Wittgenstein said, in effect: “If we haven’t got words to describe the smell of coffee which we can hold in a cup in our hands, how can we think we have the words adequately to describe God?”

This pretty much sums up my feelings of a loving God who feels passionate about bringing us the best, including sending us his son, Jesus. Happy drinking!

ASD

Why showing kindness to strangers gets my vote

The Mediterranean is turning into a graveyard. It is distressing to see such a high loss of human life in these recent weeks. The UN says that 23,500 migrants have already sailed to Italy this year looking for a new life.

In some ways what is happening on the North Africa-Italy route can seem like a million miles from the safety and comfort of South Suffolk, but I am betting my old socks that immigration is something most people will have a view on.

It is heart-breaking to hear of the recent loss of 700 migrants on board the 20m long boat. (Only 28 survivors were rescued.) Up to 1,500 migrants are now feared to have drowned this year alone and sadly that number will rise.

Fear and desperation do funny things to us. I wonder if we were faced with the similar problems of daily violence or economic hardship in Africa and the Middle East what we might be tempted to do, left our own devices.

In another story, The Times reported how a rubber dinghy carrying about 100 Africans migrants had started to deflate. A young Nigerian Christian started praying for his life but the Muslims on board insisted that he stopped, saying, “here we only pray to Allah” His refusal led to a desperate fight, which left 12 Christians drowned after they were thrown overboard by their fellow Muslim refugees.

How difficult it must be to forgive such aggression. For a country like ours which values freedom of choice, it rubs against everything that we hold dear.

At this time of the General Election, we have the privilege to vote for a new government. It is one of the things I most love about our country.

When I come to put my cross on the ballot paper I am not just voting out of self-interest, but in the interests of others too. I hope that my mark will affect the quality of life for my family, neighbours and colleagues. For me not to vote would seem like a waste of an opportunity to celebrate our freedom of choice.

I owe my inspiration from the biblical parable of the Good Samaritan, which provides a timely reminder on why we should show kindness to strangers, regardless of our social and ethnic differences - however hard it can be when not reciprocated.

In the story the Samaritan, part of a community despised by the Jews, spends his own money to look after a beaten up Jewish man found on the road’s wayside. Eventually he is returned to full health. Helping a fellow human being with no personal gain is a tough principle to live by in any age, but it seems even more tested with the current mass migration of people groups across the world.

However, the story of The Good Samaritan remains a political, social and moral parable for our times which rightly continues to challenge us to the core. How we welcome the broken, the troubled, the unwanted and the unlovable to live our community matters - not least to God, the creator of life.

When Jesus was asked by a legal expert what he must do to inherit eternal life he got the reply: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind”; and, “Love your neighbour as yourself…do this and you will live.”

And for that reason Jesus gets my vote. In him, a picture of true humanity is revealed through his demonstration of perfect love for others.

ASD 

I Cannot Do This Alone – A Prayer for Good Friday by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

What does it means to follow Jesus and walk towards the cross with him?

 As our church, as well as many others across the world, prepares to remember and celebrate the last three days - Easter weekend - I am grateful for the prayerful words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Almost psalm-like, they provide for me a timely perspective on how Jesus fully absorbs our humanity to reveal the glory of Heaven. Wonderfully helpful.

 

I Cannot Do This Alone

O God, early in the morning I cry to you.

Help me to pray

And to concentrate my thoughts on you;

I cannot do this alone.

In me there is darkness,

But with you there is light;

I am lonely, but you do not leave me;

I am feeble in heart, but with you there is help;

I am restless, but with you there is peace.

In me there is bitterness, but with you there is patience;

I do not understand your ways,

But you know the way for me….

Restore me to liberty,

And enable me to live now

That I may answer before you and before men.

Lord whatever this day may bring,

Your name be praised.

Amen

 

ASD