Saturday 17th October – Wilshaw clearing and levelling rubbish heap
DO YOU feel like some exercise that is cost free, in the open air and where the chat and laughter is as important as the work? If so, then you are most welcome to join our band of merry helpers. We aim for this to be an informal group, where friendships can grow as the weeds are subdued!!
All groups run from about 9:30am to 12:30pm but don’t feel you have to be there the whole time. Please bring own tea/coffee and tools.
Please contact Mike on 07867 951512 for further details, or to let him know you can help.
Join us for our Harvest Festival as we celebrate and give thanks for God’s wonderful gifts – Sunday 11th October at 9:30am – join us in church or at home on our live stream. Food donations will be distributed via Meltham Food Bank. https://youtu.be/X0aTwZ8RrZQ
Let the heart of those who seek the Lord rejoice; seek the Lord and be strengthened, seek his face always.
Entering prayer today, we seek the Lord, seeking his face, looking for the signs of his presence in our lives. Looking for His gentle hand guiding us into truth, peace and love.
Isaiah 55:6-9 Seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near; let the wicked forsake their way, and the unrighteous their thoughts; let them return to the Lord, that he may have mercy on them, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. “
Jesus spent a lot of His time with unpopular people. A good example can be seen in Luke’s gospel where a woman anoints the feet of Jesus with precious oil and wipes them clean with her hair. This, and other events recorded in the gospels, scandalised onlookers – it did not accord with how they thought God should work, with how the Messiah should behave. During the Pandemic the majority of us conformed whilst others blatantly broke the set rules.
God is looking for men and women to whom He can communicate what needs to be done to rescue humanity. Like Moses we must spend time with God before we can communicate the Heart of God to those around us and to the world.
So, Seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near.” If sometimes your thoughts dwell on the past, regretting that you did not do this or that, or on the future, speculating or worrying about what the outcome will be like, is there a message here for you? A message to attend to the present, to the now.
If you sometimes think that God is somewhere else, and that you could really do God’s will if only you were somewhere else, if only you had made different life choices, if only you weren’t living among such impossible people…. is there a message for you here? That God is not somewhere else, but where you are now?
Read the passage from Isaiah 55 again, notice the balance between the nearness of God and the transcendence of God. God is not like us, yet God is close to us.
Your path to God is the one you are on right now, and there is no other. You cannot start, or move on, from anywhere but here. So perhaps now would be a good time to ask God for the help you need to get closer to him.
A PRAYER FOR OUR TIMES
God of compassion, have mercy on this Nation and our world in this time of fear and confusion:
We bring before you those who are struggling and those who tend to their needs; may those in isolation know your comfort and company and may neighbours show your love in works of care, kindness and prayer;
we pray for the National Health Service and all engaged in scientific research and we pray too for those upon whose shoulders the yolk of leadership rests that in their conversation and communication your still small voice may be heard; We ask this in the Power of the Holy Spirit, through to the One who stretched out His hands to bless and to heal even Jesus Christ our Lord Amen
KEEP SAFE – KEEP PRAYING
Peter
PS from Peter – I confess to looking back to those outstanding moments where God chose to seek me out – rather than seeking Him out, listening to the still small voice, and watching to see where God is in the here and now.
Join us at church or online for a service of Holy Communion led by Rev’d Dennis Shields on Sunday 4th October at 9:30am. Live stream available via YouTube: https://youtu.be/PR62t9enpT0
Wow! Can you believe it, Autumn is already upon us? It must be time for the October edition, so pop on your comfy’s, make a brew and snuggle down while you read about all that’s happening, in our #Meltham community…….
…….there’s been a ‘Pop Up’ crossroads shop (see pg 13) Denis has managed the ‘Wilshaw 3 peaks’ find out more on page 31 and there are lots of opportunities to get yourself outdoors by helping to clear some church grounds (pg 25.)
TIME. Our relationship with it is one of the great stresses of our age. There is never enough of it. Our obsession with finding faster ways of doing things makes no difference. ‘Time Management’ is one of the most frequent searches on the internet. But ‘making the most of the time’ suggests something different. There is certainly a call to live wisely and responsibly here, but rather than a call to improve our organisational skills, we are being invited to live in time’s fullness. This is not about the quantity of time managed so much as the quality of time lived.
If we are to make the most of the challenges and opportunities of life, we will need a trusting relationship with time. Without it, our best intended activities will tend to be anxious, driven, reactive and increasingly lacking in depth.
What might it mean to live as if there really is time enough?
Time is God’s gift. So the first response might be to develop a habit of gratitude in relation to it. God allows time to be time. Time gives life its priority and direction. There is gift in the constraints time places upon our activities. Without time, nothing would have any more significance than anything else. Time is not working against us or denying us our truest vocation.
Therefore, thank God for time. From a Reflection by David Runcorn
A PRAYER FOR OUR TIME
Spirit of All Creation: May our faith in you and one another guide us
as we cannot yet see our way through this time of crisis.
May our hope in you and the goodness of our neighbours
strengthen us as we endure our discomforts and fears.
Give comfort to all who are emotionally, physically, and spiritually distressed.
Bless our healthcare providers and all who are taking care of those who are ill.
Grant wisdom and discernment to those who are researching and searching for medicines to combat our diseases, the coronavirus, and other illnesses.
Help us to reassure and comfort our children and protect them from harm and danger.
Grant, O God, to those who lead our governments, institutions, and hospitals,
our schools and local organizations, safety, and emergency services, and ourselves,
wisdom beyond our own wisdom to contain the coronavirus,
faith beyond our own faith to help us to fight our fears
and strength beyond our own strength to be resilient
and sustain all our vital institutions through this time of turmoil.
Although we are physically separated from one another help us,
Eternal One, to maintain our social connection to one another by our
creatively and ethically using social media.
Help each of us to know that there is something in us stronger than fear.
Birth in us a new sense of hope that will help us to rise above the clouds of despair.
Grant, Eternal Love, that we emerge from this time of crisis a more loving people who are more committed to the welfare of all and the earth that sustains us.
Amen
Reflection by Rev. Frederick J. Streets senior pastor of
Dixwell Congregational Church, New Haven, CT.
Issue Title: Hard Times, Gospel Values Issue Year: 2020
Join us in church or online for a Service of the Word led by Nigel Priestley – Sunday 27th September – 9:30am. As usual, the service can also be viewed at any time afterwards. https://youtu.be/5_i0FHRPKHA
‘Christ be near at either hand’. Let me make these simple words my prayer today. Let me know Christ’s presence in my life, Christ’s closeness to me in every moment of this day and let me welcome that presence with an open heart.
St Paul often seems over-confident, but his confidence in God is not something he has created. It was his gift from God at the time of his conversion.
As you read this reading from St Paul’s letter to the Romans, put yourself with Paul in this gesture of faith and availability.
No matter what, we are the Lord’s… Romans 14:7-9 We do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves. If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s. For to this end Christ died and lived again, so that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living.
We hear a lot these days about self-help. Bookshops are filled with guides to achieve this or that target. People in the media claim that they are self-made successes. There are countless memes, (a meme is typically a photo or video) about ‘doing it for yourself’. Motivational speakers encourage us to be self-aware, to be filled with self-esteem. Perhaps you have engaged with a self-help programme? Did it satisfy or leave you wanting something more…? Perhaps it left you desiring God to step in… Of course, taking care of yourself is a compassionate, mature, adult thing to do. But self-help is not easy. There is a phrase, ‘you cannot pour from an empty cup’. Have you heard this phrase? What do you think it means for you? Where might you be filled again? As Christians, we are vessels, like those made by Jeremiah’s potter. Gathered and shaped, spoiled and made over by an attentive, loving God. Our life, and our death, are grace filled by the Father’s hands, given over by his Son’s death and resurrection. In all that we are, we are the Lord’s.
Ponder on the Questions asking do they resonate with your own experience.
Keep your thoughts in mind and re-read the reading from Romans 14 again…
In thirty-six years in Ordained Ministry Romans 14:7-9 must be the scripture I have leaned on most. It has been most helpful with the bereaved whether it was used in the funeral service or not. For me personally it gave me confidence simply to know that I belong to the Lord and it has been a comfort and assurance to those I have shared that knowledge with.
Some months ago, In a rare bout of feeling down and struggling with confidence, a number of faithful Christians were a great support and help to me. I was given a book on mindfulness. I would probably say that the visit of the giver was more of a tonic than the book itself. I must say that it’s a good book, and I read it, but it made hard work of regaining confidence. I ought to have remembered that the answer to my problems lay waiting for me in Romans 14. And like the pot in the potter’s hand I needed to be reshaped and refilled with Gods Holy Spirit.
PRAY ‘Christ be near at either hand’. Let me make these simple words my prayer today. Let me know Christ’s presence in my life,
Christ’s closeness to me in every moment of this day and let me welcome that presence with an open heart.
You alone, O God, are infinite in love. You alone can speak to our condition.
You alone can search the mind and purify the heart. You alone can flow over our darkness with the ocean of eternal light George Fox 1624 -1691
As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.
