A service brought to Mayfield Chapel by Mrs Muriel Stonehewer,
From our Coal Aston Church.
Prayer:
We look to you, O Lord
As a flock looks to its shepherd,
so we look to you, O Lord.
Gather us lovingly within your fold,
and speak to us through your Word.
As sheep who know the voice of their shepherd, let us worship God.
Hymn: There's a quiet understanding
There's a quiet understanding | Lyrics - YouTube
Prayer
As we come before you in worship today, lead us, Lord; be our
shepherd.
As we seek you in our prayers and praising, guide us, Lord; we need our shepherd.
As we follow you through rough and smooth, save us, Lord; you are our shepherd.
Lord, there are times when your word just washes over us;
like the twenty-third psalm.
We have sung it at weddings, and funerals, and Sunday services
all our lives and so it has become over-familiar.
We know the words by heart yet fail to take them to our hearts.
We take them for granted, just as we take you for granted.
We are sheep who have gone astray; we fail to recognise our shepherd's
voice, because we have stopped listening for it.
Forgive us, Good Shepherd.
Thank you for being with us on life's journey.
We praise you for the green pastures and the still waters,
when all is well; and we thank you for walking with us in the dark valleys.
We are protected within the fold, and without;
we can look back and see how our Shepherd, not only good, but mighty in power, has protected and defended us through all our lives.
Thank you for meeting the needs of your flock; for knowing everyone by name;
and for holding each single one of us as precious in your sight.
Thank you, Good Shepherd. Amen
The Lord's Prayer
Hymn: The Lord's my Shepherd
The Lord's My Shepherd - Stuart Townend - YouTube
Reading: Psalm 23
Hymn: May the mind of Christ my Saviour
May the Mind of Christ My Saviour (Tune: St Leonard - 5vv) [with lyrics for congregations] - YouTube
'I wish we could get back to normal.'
I wonder how many times we have heard this.
It's not unusual when we are out of our, comfort zone to want to go back to a place where we felt comfortable.
As Churches together in Dronfield and District we hold early morning services in Holy Week, on each day of the week. It's always been said that the Saturday, between Good Friday and Easter Sunday is the hardest day to preach because basically nothing happened on that. Nothing is said in the Bible about that day.
Imagine those Disciples on Holy Saturday. They probably were wanting to return to what they called "normal", - socialising with Jesus, - going out preaching with him, - eating with friends,
They might well have said 'Why can't we return to the normal we knew?'
The future probably did not look as bright as the past.
The disciples were not the only people in the Bible who wanted to go back. The Israelites having left slavery in Egypt and gone into the wilderness with Moses started to complain.
And they said one to another: ‘Let us make a captain and let us return into Egypt.’ [Numbers Chapter 14 2-4]
After 40 years, the Israelites ask to return to Egypt. It can be understood
• they are still Egyptian slaves at heart,
• at this the moment they are hungry, and they are in the desert,
• they are afraid and want to go back.
After 40 years, during which they have received the Ten Commandments, Moses as a prophet and Aaron as his right-hand man, with all these wonders, they still want to go back to Egypt.
How and why does this happen?
• Egypt is their identity.
• Egyptian is their mother tongue.
• Egypt is their first memory.
• Egypt is the society in which they lived.
Remember the times when you faced things that you had to do or new situations that you were uncomfortable with, and you probably longed for the good old days.
How you might feel right now?
That's what the Children of Israel were feeling, what the disciples were feeling
God, can I trust you, am I better trusting myself and the past?
But we should take heart at this time. Look at what the Bible says.
(Jeremiah 29v11 -13)
For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for
welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.
Look what God says: he has your welfare at heart, he has plans for you and he wants to give you hope and a future.
He wants you to go forward not backwards. He had plans for the disciples, he had plans for the children of Israel he had a future for them of which they should not be afraid.
In Isaiah 43 vs 18-19 we read
“Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.”
God was a God of new things then and God is still a God of new
things
On New Years Eve it's easy to often think 'Well I wouldn't have imagined
that happening last year' and perhaps we've said it even more during
the pandemic.
As we get older we can look back and see where God taken us during our
life which then can encourage us to ask 'Where will God take me next?'
The one thing we can have absolute confidence in is that God has plans
for us plans that we might anticipate but equally there may be plans that we don't anticipate.
Let us finally reflect on the words of St Paul (Philippians 3:13-14)
'Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet;
but one thing I do:
forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead,
I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in
Christ Jesus.'
Jesus said when we put our hands to the plough we should not look back.
To the people hearing him what he said what would make sense they were an agricultural people. If you were ploughing with an old wooden plough you had to look forward. If you looked back the furrow would not be straight.
As we have met at Swanwick this week for the Wesleyan Reform Union conference we have spent some considerable time thinking about what lies ahead and all the churches will be hearing more about that very shortly.
As we slowly emerge from the pandemic let's not yearn for the old normal but go forward with the plans God has for us.
Hymn: I do not know what lies ahead
I Do Not Know What Lies Ahead - YouTube
Prayers for others.
All-seeing and ever -loving God,
help us to see others as your children, cherished by you.
This week, as we pray for other people, let us ask God to help us see them from his perspective, rather than making assumptions.
All-seeing and ever -loving God,
help us to see others as your children, cherished by you.
Lord, we lift to you our world leaders. It is so easy to be critical of them, to believe what we read in the papers or on social media rather than seeing them as people just like us with needs like ours. In an increasingly unstable world we ask you to give them wisdom and integrity. Help them to put the needs of their country before their own desires. We pause for a moment of silence now, as we try to imagine what it must be like to walk in their shoes.
All-seeing and ever-loving God,
help us to see others as your children, cherished by you.
We pray for countries at war or suffering long periods of unrest, particularly Afghanistan and the Middle East. It's so easy for people to take sides and fight rather than try and see the world from the perspective of others. We pray that a new desire to love and treasure others may sweep this planet, bringing in a new reign of peace.
All-seeing and ever-loving God,
help us to see others as your children, cherished by you.
In our country, Lord, we thank you for the example given to us by the Queen and continue to uphold her in prayer. We ask that you will give her comfort as she mourns the death of Prince Philip and as her grandchildren are the focus of so much public scrutiny. We pray for our government, as the problems of Covid-19 continue to beset us all. Help us not to be critical of the rules and regulations and the people who make them but, instead, to do our best to keep others safe.
All-seeing and ever-loving God,
help us to see others as your children, cherished by you.
Lord, we pray for our communities and all who live and serve in them. We thank you for those who sweep our streets, empty our bins and clean our shops, workplaces and hospitals. We pray for your strength and reassurance for our over-stretched NHS and for tired teachers trying to have a summer break. We pray for the unemployed and those on zero hours contracts struggling to make ends meet. And, Lord, we pray for the 'onlys', the people overlooked by society or considered insignificant. We ask that we, as a church, may find ways to help the disadvantaged in our communities in the short-term whilst praying that our government may have the courage to find long-term solutions.
All-seeing and ever-loving God,
help us to see others as your children, cherished by you.
We come before you, Lord, in sorrow that so many people in our world are abused or neglected because of their race, colour or gender. We ask your forgiveness for any part we have played in preventing your world from being a place of harmony and stability. We lift up the millions of refugees fleeing unsafe homes. We pray for the migrants trying to cross the channel and we pray too for those who exploit them. We ask you to give strength and courage to oil those fighting for justice in our world. We
ask you to give us all the eyes to see everyone as made in your image with equal worth.
All-seeing and ever-loving God,
help us to see others as your children, cherished by you.
Finally, Lord, we commit to you those who live around us. We picture them in our minds now as we bring them to you for blessing: our friends, our neighbours, the people who walk their dogs past our house, those we say 'hi' to in the street or at the station or on the bus but don't know their names. We pray for those who live behind closed doors that we never see, those we used to spend time with who, for whatever reason, we don't see any more. And we pray for those whom we avoid... Lord, you know them all by name and we thank you for each of them and for the way they touch our lives. Give us the grace to be good neighbours, willing to go the extra mile for all these people who are, underneath it all, just the same as us.
All-seeing and ever-loving God,
help us to see others as your children, cherished by you.
Help us to serve one another
because we are all made in your image.
Help us to bring your love to everyone we meet this week. Amen.
Hymn: Forth in thy name
Forth in thy name O Lord I go (BY St Michael's Singers) (gospel hymns) - YouTube
Blessing
Be the waters quiet, and the pastures green,
be there with us, Good Shepherd.
Be the valleys dark and filled with foes,
wherever we are, wherever we go;
be there with us, Good Shepherd.
Prayers taken from rootsontheweb.com
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