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Minister Prayers Walking the Way

7 June 2020

I wrote last week about beginning a series of Prayer walks, so I thought I would share something from those. Monday was Ansty Road, beginning outside the church where I could inspect the early work on the redevelopment, trenches a dug for the footings, there is a big hole where the steps used to be and all the muck from broken drains has been cleared out. Inside some of the walls have been removed. Already a different view into the building is emerging. That, for me, is the purpose of a prayer walk, not just to pray but to have a new view emerge.

Ansty Road is shorter than I thought, I had to consciously slow myself down. I noticed various building projects in progress, the closed pubs/club and the taste of pollution beginning again as the roads become busier. We wondered if the climate might get an extended break, but it seems not. There were various other people walking as well, most looked as if they were exercising, most keen to nod hello, whilst maintaining distance but each engagement remembering the joy of being amongst people. 

Around St. Columba’s, it’s quieter. Drapers Field isn’t being used to park for the City Centre and there is very little movement. Along the canal, the ducks were negotiating a collection of lilies, cans and bottles. There is still no rest for our environment. Along Widdrington Road and Aldbourne Road cars are parked tightly, seemingly with nowhere to go. I’m reminded that I wanted to focus on environmental concerns through this period, but have been distracted, The climate crisis will not go away and will not do so if we return to business as usual.    

On Monday of this week  we will pray on Hocking Road, Farren Road, Oldham Ave, Hyde Rd, Edyth Rd, Belgrave Road, Arch Road.

On Tuesday, St. Columba’s Close, St. Nicholas Street, Ellys Road, Sandy Lane, Somerset Road, Dorset Road, Kingfield Road, Pridmore Road, Foleshill Road.

Please join in however you can.

Some of you have been kind enough to ask after my parents. They have both been ill with Covid-19, as have many others in their care home. They have both recovered from it, but are a bit weaker and a bit more confused than they were before. Thank you for the prayers and messages of support, it has been particularly difficult when we have been unable to visit and wonder what news each phone call will bring.

Sunday 7 June   Trinity Sunday

Prayer In the name of God we come to worship

As followers of Jesus we come to worship

Welcomed by the Spirit we come to worship

Hymn Eternal God, your loves tremendous glory

cascades through life in overflowing grace,

to tell creation’s meaning in the story

of love evolving love from time and space.

Bible 2 Corinthians 13:5-14

Reflection I watch the news from the United States with a heavy heart. The ease and arrogance with which a Police Officer killed a man whilst the public watched. The threat to violence from the President enacted with ruthless efficiency and then protesters being cleared from the White House with tear gas so that the President can strut across the road and hold a bible up outside a church. And then sometimes I’m heartened by peoples humanity -, the images of many peaceful demonstrations and the voices of speakers such as William Barber II (https://www.facebook.com/anewppc/videos/268796894477061/)  and Traci Blackmon (https://youtu.be/QwpjH2ZkdSI)  But mostly I’m appalled.

And I’m worried. We might sit here and say, “Look at them over there” but I know that many of our communities feel similarly marginalised and discriminated against, and you wonder what spark might set off similar scenes and whether a government that likes it’s militaristic language, may respond with similar aggression. It seems so far away, and yet so close.

On Trinity Sunday we focus on the oneness of God, whether presented as Creator, Son or Spirit. We remember that relationships are complex and many faceted and yet we are called to be one body. Whenever Paul writes to the Corinthians he knows that divisions are not far from the surface and so he challenges them, “Examine yourselves to see whether you are living in the faith” and then he encourages them, “Put things in order, listen to my appeal, agree with one another, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you. Greet one another with a holy kiss.” None of those strike me as passive responses. If we care about the things we see on the news, then we need to be active in examining ourselves, listening to others, finding agreement, creating peace, dwelling with love, greeting with a kiss.

Prayer

We seek blessing upon your church

that we may be one as you are one

that we may follow the path you lead 

that we reveal your glory

May your Spirit rest upon each one. 

Hymn

Love’s trinity, self-perfect, self-sustaining;

love which commands, enables and obeys:

you give yourself, in boundless joy, creating 

one vast increasing harmony of praise. 

Alan Gaunt Rejoice & Sing 33

© Stainer & Bell Ltd

Categories
Minister Mission Podcasts Prayers

Praying with Questions

Our final podcast of this Easter to Pentecost series finds us playing with questions and responding in prayer. We hope you have found them useful, we will return if we feel we have something to say.

Credits: Music – “Spirit of God” © Ray Stanyon

Categories
Minister News Prayers Walking the Way

Sunday 24 May  Sixth Sunday after Easter

I wrote last week about the way in which this time has created a new routine in the way I work. But routines can’t last for ever and already it’s time to change to a new pattern. Throughout June we are going to join with churches across the city in praying for Coventry. This is going to be done by walking every street whilst we pray. When this was planned we had no idea that it would coincide with a time when we have been unable to go out unless absolutely necessary, and just at the moment when those who can are emerging to look around a world that feels very different to the one we knew in March. Yet, it is still a time when we are unable to open our church buildings – so how apt that before we can imagine going back into our buildings we must walk through our communities and pray for them. 

So I am going to commit myself to a prayer walk every Monday and Tuesday through June. So there will be no time for Podcasts, or the Bible Study unless something new emerges whilst I walk and pray. I would love you to join me in this enterprise. We could walk as two or three together, but you can also plan your own prayer routes and make your own commitments to to walk a particular area. The way to do so is to go to https://www.openheavencoventry.org/the-app register with it and mark the roads that you wish to pray for, when you have done so you go back and click on it to say that you have prayed for those roads and pick some more. If you find that there are no streets to pray for in the area you can access, then go and walk them anyway and pray for them again. 

But the other way that you can support this is by following the route I give you each Sunday, follow it on a map and pray with me. I will begin on 1st June by walking the whole of Ansty Road and on 2nd June by walking from St. Columba’s and around Drapers Field. Each Monday I will be somewhere around Ansty Road and on Tuesday’s around St. Columba’s. 

But this week, we finish our May routine. On Tuesday will be the final bible study in our 1 Peter series join us at 7pm on Tuesday at  https://us02web.zoom.us/j/4043156568. And next Sunday will be our podcast for Pentecost bringing that series to an end. We will return at another time having listened for something new to say. And at Ansty Road another change will begin, on Monday the builders will move in and so whenever we return to church it will be to something new. It means that none of us can go in the building without first checking with the builders. Please do so through me. But also, how exciting, nothing stands still. 

be blessed, 

Craig

 

Prayer May Jesus be glorified through the life of his people. 

May God be glorified through all who know God’s presence in the world

Hymn I heard the voice of Jesus say

‘Come unto me and rest;

lay down, O weary one, lay down

your head upon my breast.’

I came to Jesus as I was,

forlorn and faint and sad;

I found in him a resting place,

and he has made me glad.

Bible John 17:1-11

Reflection This is the prayer of Jesus for disciples who are going to negotiate the world without him. In some ways this is the real Lords Prayer, the one we know by that name was a teaching aid. Here in John, Jesus is commending disciples into God’s care. They know God’s name, that Jesus has come from God. They have been given God’s word and know the truth that comes from God. They will remain in the world and so need God’s protection in order to remain a united community of God’s people. 

This is a prayer for people who are going to be pulled so many ways by so many different demands. The pull of family, religion, and tribe. The complications of work, loyalty and ambition. The love of pride, wealth and status. These are people we recognise, facing similar pressures to those we face and Jesus fears that these fragile disciples will crumble under this pressure and yet also knows what he has trained them for. I can remember when I was first ordained as a minister, so full of expectation and hope, ambition and ideas. Suddenly I was faced with an enormous pastoral situation, a baby was born with severe brain damage and lived just six short days. I found myself with these parents I had only just met, grandparents I met in the lift on the way to the ward and I didn’t know what to say or do or even if I could cope. I didn’t know if my training had equipped me for this situation – but discovered it had. Somehow I ministered to them (and they ministered to me) and we discovered that God had given us just enough resources to live the next day. And every June for the last 22 years we remembered Ella and her short life amongst us. 

Prayer Righteous God, though the world does not know you, we know you, and we know that you have sent Jesus to make you known to us, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for us may be in all people and that Jesus may be in them.’

Hymn I heard the voice of Jesus say

I am this dark world’s light;

look unto me, your morn shall rise

and all your day be bright

I looked to Jesus, and I found

in him my star, my sun;

and in that light of life I’ll walk,

till travelling days are done.

H Bonar (1808-89)