(All our songs this morning are from Singing the Faith (StF) numbers will be given where available)
Welcome to our Sunday Service, today shared on paper across our circuit and with the congregation at Thornton Methodist Church led by Jackie Marshall one of our Circuit Local Preachers.
Click on the blue links to follow them for bible readings and associated links
Theme – Relationship not Religion
Call to Worship: Thank you for joining us in worship – you are most welcome! I am Jackie Marshall, one of the Local Preachers in the Circuit, and the service this Sunday is once again shared with our friends at Thornton Methodist Church, so let’s join with them in Spirit to praise God together.
Our Call to Worship this morning is some verses from the Psalm for today, attributed to King David, praising God and asking for his protection.
I will praise you, Lord, with all my heart;
before the “gods” I will sing your praise.
Though I walk in the midst of trouble,
you preserve my life…
…your love, Lord, endures forever
Song – StF 83 – Praise my soul the King of heaven
Opening Prayers: Let’s pray together.
Welcoming God,
we come to meet again in worship, recognising that in this time we become a part of the fellowship
of this church and of the wider church around the world.
There is a special feeling about being in a group of worshippers
a sense of unity, even if we don’t always agree;
a sense of protection from a world that can often feel hostile and frightening;
a sense of peace at the thought of being with you; a sense of love that lies at the root of your
relationship with us and our relationship to each other.
Thank you, loving God, that we are all a part of your vast, amazingly varied family.
In our worship today may we find our hearts warmed by our singing, our prayers and our learning
together. Help us to discover again that although we come here to meet you in a special way, you
are concerned about the whole of our lives and you know our joys, our problems, our fears and the
trivia of our everyday living.
Understanding God, deal with us gently, and help us to hear those words you have given for both
comfort and challenge.
Then be with us as we go out to live them, today, tomorrow and for all the days to come.
Amen ©Marjorie Dobson
The Lord’s Prayer
Here at Thornton, the congregation includes a number of young people and this morning we’re going to be thinking about the Lord’s Prayer in the traditional form we most often use in church and then asking them if they can translate it into modern language that could easily be understood by a child. Perhaps you would like to try at home, writing your modern, simply worded translation alongside the words below?
Our Father
Who art in heaven
Hallowed be Thy Name
Thy kingdom come
Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven
Give us this day our daily bread;
And forgive us our trespasses
as we forgive those who trespass against us
And lead us not into temptation;
But deliver us from evil
For Thine is the kingdom,
the power, and the glory,
forever and ever. Amen
When we have finished our translation, we’re going to pray the prayer together. Join in with us, using yours.
Song – StF 354 – Jesus is the name we honour
Gospel Reading:
We’re going to share now St Luke’s account of Jesus teaching his disciples how to pray, followed by a poem reflecting on the passage.
Poem: Prayer
To pray
is to be open to the One who knows you intimately;
who has known and loved you from the beginning.
Open to God who is awe-inspiring goodness,
breath-taking power, suffering love.
Open to God and to all that he is doing,
making, loving, feeding,
setting free, protecting.
To come honestly,
bringing all that you are,
all that you long for.
With some friends, there are things you cannot say:
the relationship would not survive if you asked too much
or at the wrong moment;
if you revealed your anger or your hurt.
Some friends accept you as you are:
awkward,
imperfect,
annoying,
and still love you.
God is that kind of friend.
If you are a parent you might remember a time
when you could not give your child what she asked for,
when the thing she asked for would have caused her harm,
when you had to say “no”;
when perhaps she did not understand
how much you loved her.
We want to give our children
things that will help them,
nurture them, bring them joy.
Prayer is like that and more. © Sue Brown 2012
Song – StF 519 – Father, I place into your hands
Epistle: In our next Bible reading we hear from St Paul as he writes from prison to the church in Colosse, a church planted by Epaphras, who had met Paul in Ephesus. Colosse was a superstitious small town and some of the new converts were becoming confused and afraid that if they didn’t carry out rituals and practices to appease the spirits, they would lay themselves open to disaster. Paul writes with love and encouragement, reassuring them that Jesus is Lord of all and has done all that is necessary to save them.
Colossians 2: 6-15 (The Message)
6-7 My counsel for you is simple and straightforward: Just go ahead with what you’ve been given. You received Christ Jesus, the Master; now live him. You’re deeply rooted in him. You’re well constructed upon him. You know your way around the faith. Now do what you’ve been taught. School’s out; quit studying the subject and start living it! And let your living spill over into thanksgiving.
8-10 Watch out for people who try to dazzle you with big words and intellectual double-talk. They want to drag you off into endless arguments that never amount to anything. They spread their ideas through the empty traditions of human beings and the empty superstitions of spirit beings. But that’s not the way of Christ. Everything of God gets expressed in him, so you can see and hear him clearly. You don’t need a telescope, a microscope, or a horoscope to realize the fullness of Christ, and the emptiness of the universe without him. When you come to him, that fullness comes together for you, too. His power extends over everything.
11-15 Entering into this fullness is not something you figure out or achieve. It’s not a matter of being circumcised or keeping a long list of laws. No, you’re already in—insiders—not through some secretive initiation rite but rather through what Christ has already gone through for you, destroying the power of sin. If it’s an initiation ritual you’re after, you’ve already been through it by submitting to baptism. Going under the water was a burial of your old life; coming up out of it was a resurrection, God raising you from the dead as he did Christ. When you were stuck in your old sin-dead life, you were incapable of responding to God. God brought you alive—right along with Christ!
Think of it! All sins forgiven, the slate wiped clean, that old arrest warrant cancelled and nailed to Christ’s cross. He stripped all the spiritual tyrants in the universe of their sham authority at the Cross and marched them naked through the streets.
Reflection:
Since the pandemic, many parents have taken the opportunity to continue working from home.
Just imagine you were one of those parents and, despite your constant presence, your children only spoke to you once a week, in very formal tones, often using the same, set words week after week, and frequently not giving you time to respond before leaving. How do you think that would feel? Would it not be more natural for the children to be frequently popping in and out, chatting to you, sharing their news, their everyday thoughts and activities, asking you questions, coming to you for advice, for encouragement, to thank you and say I love you, or perhaps just to sit quietly for the comfort of your presence?
Which scenario is most likely to reflect a healthy parent-child relationship?
Which scenario most closely resembles our prayer lives?
Through Jesus, God makes it clear that what he cares about is having an honest, living, loving, joyful relationship with each one of us, not us slavishly trying to follow a set of religious rules, leaving us feeling guilty, miserable and perhaps even resentful when we fail.
Through Jesus, God makes it possible for us to be adopted as his infinitely loved children, in whom he delights.
Let’s be the kind of children who talk constantly, openly and lovingly to our beloved and respected Abba, our Dad in heaven, and who then listen trustingly for him to answer us. We can call it praying.
Prayers of Intercession
As we reflect on the words of our next hymn, let us be led into a time of silent prayer together, where we bring to him everything that weighs heavy on our hearts, be that events we have heard of or seen in the news, concerns about our churches, difficulties faced by our families and friends or our own personal worries. Then let us simply rest a while in God’s loving presence and listen for his response.
Song – StF 530 – To be in Your Presence
You received Christ Jesus, the Master; now live him. Remember those words of St Paul?
Our last hymn challenges us to do just that!
Song – StF 251 – Jesus Christ is waiting
Blessing: Let’s end our time of worship by blessing each other with the words of The Grace
May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us all, now and evermore. Amen
Credits: Copyrighted items downloaded from The Worship Cloud, theworshipcloud.com with permission to use in local services of worship
