Dear friends
I wonder how your prayer life is? Over the last two weeks our television screens have shown many church services where many words of prayer have been spoken. We have heard traditional prayers of liturgy, beautiful prayers offered for our late monarch, prayers for our world, and prayers for the future.
Each Thursday, we send out audio Prayers via email (Pause and Pray)for those who would like to join in with prayers in this way.
Every Sunday in our acts of worship we have times of corporate prayer, intercessory prayer, and times of silence for your own prayers to be offered.
In between these things will be your own prayer life, your own pattern of praying to God.
Morning prayer today, (which as a reminder we hold every Friday at 9:30am and to which everyone is welcome), we ended as we always do with praying together. We shared times when prayers have been answered, and remembered the tension of sometimes offering our prayers before God when it can feel like a ‘Wish List’ of how we long life would be, and how hard it can be when we don’t see that prayers have been answered in the way we were expecting.
I was reminded that no prayer is too small for God to hear. I believe so strongly in the power of prayer, and I believe that the more we pray the more we might become aligned with God’s desires for the world, and then our prayers become those things that God needs us to pray for.
And so my message this week is a simple one. If you could stop now, as you are reading this message, and offer a prayer to God, what would it be? Without any beautiful words, any formal liturgy, just those things on your heart coming before God, your fears, your hopes, your desires, your anxieties … whatever it is, what would you ask of God? What would you say to God? What would you offer to God?
Our prayer life really can be this simple. Just a pause in the day, a coming before God in a moment, just as you are, before the One who loves you so much, knowing deeply that no prayer is too small.
In our services on Sunday, we will be reminded of the ways in which God stirs us to action, calls us to pray, and invites us to join in with his transforming work in the world. At 8:30 am this will be in our traditional service of holy communion and at 10:30 am in our All Together communion service where we come together as all ages and all stages of faith.
Please put in your diary Monday, 3rd of October. This is when we will hold our time of prayer together in church, beginning at 7pm with an open conversation where we can bring our prayers for ourselves, our parish, or anything in our hearts. At 7:30pm we will then move to the Lady Chapel, for a time of contemplative prayer. Everyone is welcome, no prayer is too small.
God bless
Becky