Weekly Intercessions, Worship Notes and Some Prayer Resources
Intercessions, Notes and more Resources…
Dear Friends,
this week’s prayers of intercession have been written by the Rev’d Helen Everard, Minister of Fleet URC in Hampshire. You can download them here.
If you’ve not seen the March worship notes you can find them here. This week’s are up and are useful to help as you plan worship and look at two of Sunday’s readings: Genesis 12:1-4a (the call of Abram) and St John 3:1-17 (the story of Nicodemus visiting Jesus at night, in secret). We consider how we help people who have responded to God’s call become part of the Church. In the Early Church the process lasted two years (!) and candidates for membership had to leave the service half way through as they weren’t allowed to receive Communion until they’d been baptised. They were taught the faith and had to show they’d left pagan beliefs and practices behind. Whilst not suggesting we follow that practice we wonder if we could learn from the Early Church’s critique of their society, their understanding that conversion wasn’t just an intellectual thing but a profound radical change of life, and high value they attached to Communion. We ponder what our congregations might look like if we critiqued society more closely, expected a radical change of life and valued Communion more profoundly whilst, at the same time, guard against a tendency to become sect-like. The notes, as normal, contain everything you need to build a service and contain a rite for Holy Communion.
Some time ago we built a page on the URC website offering different prayers for the seasons of the Church’s year but it’s been rather dormant. I’ve now started to add a range of prayers used by Daily Devotion service leaders over the last three years. I’ve completed the Lent and Palm Sunday sections and, over the next few weeks, will add Holy Week, Easter and Pentecost. You can have a look at what’s already been loaded here. Please do feel free to use anything that’s helpful to you in either public or private worship.
With every good wish
Andy
The Rev’d Andy Braunston
Minister for Digital Worship