St John the Evangelist, Shirley - testing

Here are the readings for Sunday 2nd August 2020 – click the picture or button to to open.

Thanks to Lu and Jackie for this mornings service, its really great to see you back in church.

Here is an opportunity to add to our collection toward the work of the church. Many thanks for anything you can give during these difficult times.

Janet did some good work earlier in the year around explaining the whole “giving”, have a read of it here to see why its so important to give what we can.

Many thanks.

Here are the readings for Sunday 26th July 2020 – click the picture or button to to open.

Thanks to Lu and Jackie for this mornings service, its really great to see you back in church.

Here is an opportunity to add to our collection toward the work of the church. Many thanks for anything you can give during these difficult times.

Janet did some good work earlier in the year around explaining the whole “giving”, have a read of it here to see why its so important to give what we can.

Many thanks.

Here are the readings for Sunday 19th July 2020 – click the picture or button to to open.

Every time we sit down at the page, we’re beginners.

CLAIRE VAYE WATKINS

This is a quote from the American writer Claire Vaye Watkins.  It is about the process of writing.

It reminded me of Revd Lu’s evening sermon last night, about sitting with God, and bringing our sometimes discomfort and disappointment with him or our lives into his abiding presence. The quote above is also about making a start, a beginning, and sitting with the feeling that we don’t really know how to do it or what will come of it. It is, in its own way, an act of humility.

It struck me that sitting with God in this way has that element of beginning too. As we begin the process of doing this, God begins a process within us and something new is born. The example Lu gave was King David being told he would not be the one to build the temple, God’s house, and spending time with the Lord in his disappointment.  There God tells him he will build him a house instead – the house of David, through which Jesus is born.

So, to return to the idea of writing, sitting with God in our difficulties, including the difficulty of prayer itself, allows God to write his words on our hearts, and to begin something new. St Paul, writing about writing to the Church at Corinth, calls them “a letter from God,” and says, “This ‘letter’ is written not with pen and ink, but with the Spirit of the living God. It is carved not on tablets of stone, but on human hearts.”

As we pray for one another and our Church at this time of new beginning, may the Spirit of the living God write his Word on our hearts, and grant us a new faithfulness as we seek him in Scripture and begin to sit with him no matter what.