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Hymn: Imagine people gathered round
Hymn: Imagine people gathered round
by Andrew Pratt
Imagine people gathered round, the day was warm, the sun was low. The mist was rising from the lake, the mood was holy, lowly, slow. Toward the evening they had come, expectant, waiting for his word. The day was long, they rested tired, and looking, his compassion stirred. Verses…
Hymn: The Psalmist calls for new songs praising God
Hymn: The Psalmist calls for new songs praising God
by Andrew Pratt
The Psalmist calls for new songs praising God but we prefer familiar words and ways. We hold and cage and mould God to our will, defending customs smothering our praise. A world-wide pool of images and grace informs our faith, re-vitalises hope, and so our view, so narrow and obs…
Hymn: Visions of paradise: heaven disclosing
Hymn: Visions of paradise: heaven disclosing
by Andrew Pratt
Visions of paradise: heaven disclosingsomething of beauty, of joy and delight; colours cascading that shimmer before us, tempting from darkness to temples of light. But we are grounded, the earth pulls, constrains us, keeping us close to the things that we know. Ours is the commo…
Lent for Everyone Mark Year B - Sunday: Week 3 in Lent Year B
Lent for Everyone Mark Year B - Sunday: Week 3 in Lent Year B
by SPCK - N T Wright
Lent for Everyone Mark Year B WEEK 3: SUNDAY... ...A couple of years ago I found myself in New York at the time when the Museum of Modern Art was hosting an exhibition of Claude Monet’s ‘Waterlily’ paintings. I hadn’t realized how enormous they were, or just how abstract the shap…
Lent for Everyone Mark Year B - Saturday: Week 3 in Lent Year B
Lent for Everyone Mark Year B - Saturday: Week 3 in Lent Year B
by SPCK - N T Wright
Lent for Everyone Mark Year B WEEK 3:SATURDAY... ...I sat for two hours with a young man who could not believe in God’s love. When I say ‘could not’, that is quite literally how it seemed. He could not believe in God’s love in much the same way that he was physically incapable of…
Genesis for Everyone Part 1 - The Mark of Cain
Genesis for Everyone Part 1 - The Mark of Cain
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Mark of Cain Genesis 4: 14-17 Our church shows up at a local homeless shelter to make dinner for the residents there once a month or so. Homeless “shelter” could give a false impression. Before I went there, I imagined something rather makeshift, almost like the shelters in w…
What news is good? That Christ will live forever?
What news is good? That Christ will live forever?
by Andrew Pratt
What news is good? That Christ will live forever? Beyond a cruel death an empty grave? And whether this is fact or faith means nothing unless Christ's Spirit gives the means to save. If we endure derision, in this moment, or share communion bread within this place, unless our liv…
Strange holiness: the glory of the Godhead
Strange holiness: the glory of the Godhead
by Andrew Pratt
Strange holiness: the glory of the Godhead, once named as love, the voice of living grace, the Word that spoke the cosmos into being: now Moses met that glory face to face. Unveiled he took that same un-borrowed glory, the covenant was given to his hand; two tablets of the law ga…
The shepherd of sheep scorns the safety of shelter
The shepherd of sheep scorns the safety of shelter
by Andrew Pratt
The shepherd of sheep scorns the safety of shelter, the wilderness beckons, the flock has run wild; but here in lush pasture, beside the still waters, the shepherd calls people, both parent and child. Verses 2-3 follow Tune: FRIARMERE VICARAGE (Hymns for Today’s Church 26; Jubila…
The Living God - Mystery or muddle? The Trinity
The Living God - Mystery or muddle? The Trinity
by SPCK - Alister McGrath
Mystery or muddle? The Trinity 5 When I was an atheist I regarded religious people as deluded and irrational souls who believed all sorts of ridiculous nonsense. If I had been asked to single out what I regarded as the most absurd aspect of Christian belief, I would have pointed …
Lectionary Reflections - Year B - The Sixth Sunday of Easter Year B
Lectionary Reflections - Year B - The Sixth Sunday of Easter Year B
by SPCK - Jane Williams
The Sixth Sunday of Easter Acts 10.44-48 1John 5.1-6 John 15.9-17 The desire for certainty goes very deep, and all of today’s readings look at that longing with sympathy, though the answers they give are as challenging as they are reassuring. In the Gospel, Jesus is at last givin…
Intercessions - I want to serve
Intercessions - I want to serve
by Jane Bingham
Intercessions for use alongside “I want to serve the purpose of God” Lord we pray for our world broken by war and conflict. Conscious of people living without homes, water and food whilst we have all we need. Conscious of people facing war just along the road from their village r…
Chosen by Christ
Chosen by Christ
by Julie M Fairweather
Chosen by Christ When You said that I didn’t choose You that it was You who chose me I knew it was true. For only You could have led me here met me here - in this place. This place where You look on me and You see me as I truly am - warts and all. Yet still You write my name in…
Imagining the Lectionary: Sheepish (Christ the King/Reign of Christ A)
Imagining the Lectionary: Sheepish (Christ the King/Reign of Christ A)
by David Perry
Imagining the Lectionary: Sheepish (Christ the King/Reign of Christ A) Reflection accompanying images “I will find my sheep and rescue them” and “I will surely judge between the fat sheep and the scrawny sheep” When it comes to getting the point across in a way that anyone can un…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - The Second Sunday of Christmas Year B
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - The Second Sunday of Christmas Year B
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Second Sunday of Christmas Jeremiah 31.7–14 Ephesians 1.3–14 John 1.[1–9] 10–18 ‘He gave them the right to become children of God,’ says John. ‘I have become a father to Israel,’ says God to Jeremiah, ‘and Ephraim is my firstborn.’ ‘He destined us for adoption as his children…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - The First Sunday of Christmas Year B
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - The First Sunday of Christmas Year B
by SPCK - N T Wright
The First Sunday of Christmas Isaiah 61.10—62.3 Galatians 4.4–7 Luke 2.15–21 God sent the Son...and God sent the Spirit of the Son. St Paul brings together Christmas and Pentecost – as unlikely a pair, to our culture-conditioned minds, as plum pudding and a May Bank Holiday. So…
Lectionary Reflections Year A - Proper 7 Year A
Lectionary Reflections Year A - Proper 7 Year A
by SPCK - Jane Williams
Lectionary reflections - Year A Ordinary Time Proper 7 Jeremiah 20.7–13 Romans 6.1b–11 Matthew 10.24–39 The prophet Jeremiah lived through times of enormous political upheaval. His long career, lasting about 40 years, saw a good king, a couple of bad kings, a weak king and the fo…
Gazing on the Gospels Year B - Proper 25 Year B