(All our songs this morning are from Mission Praise (MP) Hymns & Psalms (HP) and Singing the Faith (StF) numbers will be given where available)
Welcome to our Sunday Service, today shared on paper across our circuit led by Rev Nick Blundell one of our circuit Ministers and with the congregation at Christchurch, Windhill, where the Methodist Church and the Church of England work and worship together in a local ecumenical partnership (and have done for the last 25 years). Most of our prayers this morning are courtesy of Roots (‘Worship and learning for the whole church’).
Click on the blue links to follow them for bible readings and associated links
Call to Worship
Let us meet Jesus; in him we see God.
Let us seek his presence as a friend.
Let us follow him for his way is life and truth.
He will bring us where we need to be
to do God’s work and be God’s people.
Prayer
Lord Jesus, we come together in your presence.
We ask for courage to take steps towards places we cannot yet see,
and do things we cannot even imagine, and could not do without you.
Help us all to help each other as we travel that path and follow you. Amen.
Song – HP 436 or StF 518 – Father hear the prayer we offer
Prayers of approach, adoration, confession, and an assurance of forgiveness
God of us all,
we gather together to worship you with gladness.
We pray together for our world with hope.
We sing together to celebrate your faithfulness with joy.
We listen to your word together with eagerness.
We give thanks together for your love with gratitude.
And we follow your Son together with faith. Amen.
Response after each phrase: for we are in it together
Living God, we give thanks for the truth that no adversity can separate us from you…
no challenge can overwhelm us…
no difficulty can divide us…
no fear can swamp us…
and nothing can compare to the joy of knowing you,
and that today and forever, whatever we face –
for we are in it together.
Amen.
Faithful God, forgive us when as your people the cross of commitment has felt too heavy for us to carry,
and we have let you and those around us down.
Grant us faith, courage and humility.
Forgive us when the cost of following your Son in our daily lives has felt too risky.
Grant us faith, courage and humility.
Forgive us when we are reluctant to go beyond our comfort zone and embrace those situations that challenge us.
Grant us faith, courage and humility.
In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
Eternal God, your forgiveness enables us to begin again when we come to the end of our own strength. It enables us to overcome our mistakes as Peter did when we get things badly wrong. It enables us to see more clearly the cost of following your Son, and to receive more fully the blessing of your presence with us, through conflict, through challenge and through change. Amen.
Bible reading
Song – Mission Praise 162 or StF 272 – From heaven you came, helpless babe
Bible reading
Song – MP 935 – ‘Take up your cross!’ the Saviour said
Reflection
There are days when I’m with Peter in Caesarea Philippi,
days when I see Jesus, and can look him in the eye,
when I have the answers to his questions, and the faith to say out loud,
‘You are the Christ, you are my Lord, Son of the living God.’
On those days. when all is clear, and faith is plain to see,
I know his blessing, feel his love, and know that I can be
all that he asks, and promises, all that he wants of me.
I can be the rock on which he builds, for he has set me free.
There are other days with Peter though, harder days to bear,
days when I don’t get it, when the answers just aren’t there.
When things go wrong, and life is hard, and suffering’s in view,
days when I’m not so sure if anything is true.
Why must he go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things?
Why a crown of thorns for the holy one, the one who is king of kings?
Why a wooden cross and roman nails cruelly driven home?
Why the thirst, the loss, the agony, why the borrowed tomb?
With Peter he takes me aside, and I welcome his hard words.
I don’t want to be a stumbling block, I want to serve my Lord.
I want to grasp the things of God, not be bound by human ways,
to be freed once more from my little self, to lose myself in praise.
Who follows me must follow me, the Christ of God makes clear,
in denying self, taking up my cross, the way to life is here.
It’s when you try to step aside, to avoid the pain and loss,
that you miss the point, and the kingdom too, for my love is on that cross.
For there is no way to Easter hope, without Good Friday’s cost,
no resurrection life to live unless first we grasp the loss
that God endures as the Son is killed, broken on the tree.
There God’s love is evident, there God sets us free.
So with Peter we face the truth – a truth that’s hard to bear –
the Christ must die so I can live, and as I live I share
his path, his way, his life, his love, I give to him that place
within, my soul, my heart, my life, dependent on his grace
I stand with all he calls to him, I know he’ll die for me.
In dying he takes all my pain and grief, takes it and sets me free.
Free to choose to follow him, take up my cross and live
the life I was created for – to love, to serve, to give. Amen.
Prayer of praise and thanksgiving
God of today and of all eternity, we thank you for the promise of eternal life, revealed and won by your Son Jesus Christ.
We thank you for the privilege of being your disciples, and of being part of a fellowship of followers from whom we can learn and be inspired.
And we praise you for your reassurance that, whatever the cost and whatever we might lose,
in you we will find riches beyond our imagining or deserving.
Thank you for everything. Amen.
Song – H&P 165 – Beneath the cross of Jesus
Prayers
Lord God, you reproached Peter because he had only human concerns;
but Peter just wanted to protect the one he loved.
We pray for people the world over who find themselves in difficult situations.
We pray that they would all have someone to care for them and lift them before you.
Merciful God, hear our prayer.
We pray for all who are persecuted for their faith:
for all who are misunderstood, for asylum seekers who flee real danger in their homeland.
We pray for those who work tirelessly to address wrongs.
Merciful God, hear our prayer.
We pray for people whose lives don’t always work out right, through their fault, or through no fault of their own.
Merciful God, hear our prayer.
We pray for the people in our lives who need your protection, Lord, that we will always be faithful in prayer for them.
Merciful God, hear our prayer. Amen.
We share the Lord’s Prayer
Song – HP 704/StF 563 – O Jesus I have promised
Sending and blessing
Loving God, thank you for calling us to be your own.
Give us the grace to take up the cross, deny self, and follow Jesus in every aspect of our lives.
And so may the blessing of God, Creator, Son and Spirit, remain with us, now and always. Amen.
(CCLI 432031. Service prepared by Rev’d Nick Blundell nickcblund@gmail.com 8 Cecil Ave, BD17 5LH.)
