WORSHIP
'Love the Lord your God with all your heart...'

God reveals himself to be the most amazing being - not only in his awesome power and majesty, but more especially in his love. If we want to know what God is like (as much as it is possible for human beings to know), then we need only to look at Jesus - he is the most perfect revelation of God there is. We should not think anything about God's character that is contrary to the character of Jesus Christ who gave his life for us.

Worship is simply our response to God. When we worship we acknowledge God's worth: he is worthy to receive honour and praise. There is a sense in which our whole life should be worship - all that we are, all that we have, and all that we do should be in honour of God. But when we gather together to honour God, that is special - and that is what our worship services are for.

In addition to Sunday services there is morning and evening prayer during the week, and most of our small groups include time for worship. See the Diary for details of when and where worship in the group is taking place.
DAILY PRAYER

The Common Worship services of Morning Prayer, Evening Prayer and Night Prayer for today and tomorrow are available on this site to help you find time for God during your day. Please click on the appropriate link below.

Today:        Morning Prayer       Evening Prayer     Night Prayer

Tomorrow:  Morning Prayer       Evening Prayer     Night Prayer

Daily Prayer provided by the official Church of England website, © The Archbishops' Council of the Church of England, 2002-2004.


READINGS, COLLECTS AND COMMENTS

For comments on past readings, please go to our archive.
For themes and readings for the year, please go to readings.
To download an excel document with the readings for the year, click here.
For further thoughts and comments from Tim, see his blog here.






Sunday 28th February - 2nd of Lent (purple)

Theme: Faith

Readings:   Genesis 15:1-12,17-18   Philippians 3:17 - 4:1  Luke 13:31-35
Ps 27

Collect:
Almighty God,
by the prayer and discipline of Lent
may we enter into the mystery of Christ's sufferings,
and by following in his Way
come to share in his glory;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Comment

    Genesis 15:1 makes more sense if it is translated as in several other versions, ‘I am your shield, your reward shall be very great.’ Abram’s response was natural – he wanted to know what that reward would be, especially since he at that time was childless and Eliezer (whoever he
was) was his nominated heir. God then gave him a promise: his descendants would, like the stars, be so numerous that you could not count them. Abram believed God – and because of that faith, God accepted Abram as ‘righteous’. ‘Righteous’ in the Bible was a word that described a relationship rather than a moral state: if God regarded someone as righteous that meant there was nothing in the way of their relationship, no issues between them. St Paul picks this up in the New Testament, and uses this verse to show that our relationship with God does not depend on being ‘good enough’ for him – an impossible target – but on our trust in him.

God then spells out more of the reward he was promising Abram. He had already promised numberless descendants (and the New Testament shows that Abram’s descendants include those who share his faith, not just those who share his genes). He goes on to promise a homeland, and underlines that promise by a solemn covenant.

The method of making a covenant seems to have been one which was current at that time. One imagines that two parties making a covenant would kill an animal and divide it into two, and walk through the two parts, as if to say that if they broke the covenant they should be given the same treatment as the animal. The interesting thing about this covenant is that it is one sided: only the torch and firepot, representing God, pass between the pieces. Abram isn’t expected to walk between them, for this is a promise that God is making on his own initiative – he will give this land to Abram’s descendants.

The one-sided nature of God’s covenant makes it more like a will, in which a person bequeaths property to his or her heirs without the heirs having to do anything. We see this reflected in the terms ‘Old Testament’ and ‘New Testament’, meaning the old covenant and the new covenant which Jesus brought into effect.

Nevertheless, any relationship carries with it responsibilities. Though God’s covenant with his people is his initiative, an act of grace, it has to be accepted by his people and they have to live in its light.
God’s covenant cannot continue if his people simply ignore him. This was Jesus’ problem with the people of his own day: he was making a new covenant by his death and resurrection, but the people of Jerusalem by and large would have none of it.

The response that God wants to his covenant above all is faith. Believe him – and act accordingly!


Questions

1) What reward do we want in life?

2) Why do some people find it so difficult to believe God? What can we do or say to help them believe?
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Sunday 7th March - 3rd of Lent (purple)

Theme: Repent or Perish

Readings:   Isaiah 55:1-9   1 Corinthians 10:1-13  Luke 13:1-9
Ps  63: 1-8

Collect:
Eternal God,
give us insight
to discern your will for us,
to give up what harms us,
and to seek the perfection we are promised
in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Comment

    “Repent, or perish,” said Jesus in our gospel reading. Isaiah spells out
what that means, speaking not just to the people of Israel, but to all
of us. The heart of his message is in verses 9-11, where we all are
invited to turn from our own ways of acting and thinking and to seek to
live the way God wants. The result will be forgiveness and acceptance;
what happens if we do not receive these things is not spelt out in this
passage, but Isaiah is clear that there is an urgent need to act.

The chapter begins with an invitation to all to come, and to receive all
they need and more – water, food, luxuries (wine, milk, the richest of
fare). More than physical needs are being addressed here: this is an
invitation to life in all its fulness in the presence of God. The
previous chapter contained a description of the new age God promises; it
is this new age that we are being invited to become part of.

God offers to enter into an everlasting covenant with us, joining us to
him for ever. David is referred to; his reign was the beginning of a
golden age for Israel, and we are encouraged to look forward to a time
when that foretaste would be fulfilled in everlasting peace and
prosperity under the rule of God’s anointed king (the ‘Messiah’).

The key to receiving this is to ‘come’ to God, to ‘listen’ to him, to
‘seek’ him and to ‘call’ on him. The day of opportunity will not last
for ever – so act while he is near! And the action required is not only
worship and prayer; they are to repent, to turn from their wrong ways of
behaving and to turn to God and adopt the ways he requires. Without
repentance there can be no forgiveness from God. Forgiveness deals with
sin; the pardon is free for the sinner, but not for God – Isaiah 53 told
us how the ‘suffering servant’ would take our sins upon himself. But
God’s purpose is to restore our relationship with him. Forgiveness is an
essential element in that, and so is repentance, for if we do not turn
to God there can be no relationship with him and no point in his
forgiveness. (It is not the same for us: there is a point in our
forgiving people who sin against us and don’t repent, for when we
forgive we release ourselves from the bitterness that binds us
unhealthily to them.)

One important factor in turning to God is the realisation that God is
far above us in his ‘thoughts’ and ‘ways’. On the moral level, we all
fall short of God’s perfect standards, and his thoughts and ways are not
tainted with the wrong that ours are. But there is more to it than that.
God’s knowledge and power and wisdom are far beyond our comprehension,
and we do not understand what he is doing or planning. The big questions
of life about suffering and evil, the big questions of our own lives
when we ask ‘Why?’ but get no answer, are questions to us simply because
our understanding is so limited. They are not problems for God. We have
to turn to him in faith, without having all the answers. That is the
only way to Life.


Questions

1) How do we come to God, listen to him, seek him and call on him?

2) How can our thoughts and ways become more what they ought to be?
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Sunday 14th March - 4th of Lent (Mothering Sunday) (purple)

Theme: Welcome Home

Readings: Joshua 5: 9-12   2 Corinthians 5:16-21    Luke 15:1-3,11b-32
Ps 32

Collect:
Merciful Lord,
you know our struggle to serve you:
when sin spoils our lives
and overshadows our hearts,
come to our aid
and turn us back to you again;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
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Sunday 21th March - 5th of Lent (Holy Week)  (purple)

Theme: Extravagant Love

Readings: Isaiah 43:16-21   Philippians 3:4b-14    John 12:1-8
Ps 126

Collect:
Gracious Father,
you gave up your Son
out of love for the world:
lead us to ponder the mysteries of his passion,
that we may know eternal peace
through the shedding of our Saviour's blood,
Jesus Christ our Lord.
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Sunday 28th March - Palm Sunday (red)

Theme: The Triumphal Entry

Readings: Isaiah 40:4-9a  Philippians 2:5-11    Luke 19:28-40
Ps 118:19-29

Collect:
True and humble king,
hailed by the crowd as Messiah:
grant us the faith to know you and love you,
that we may be found beside you
on the way of the cross,
which is the path of glory.
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