Welcome to our service today. We continue our series on finding peace as we walk through the roadmap out of lockdown and today Claire looks at John 1:1-5
We will gather together on zoom for communion after the service at 12.15pm. Bring your own bread and wine. The link is here . If you can't make communion on zoom the words are at the end of the service.
We have a Church Meeting on 9th May at 12.15pm on zoom after the online service. This will be a chance for us to share and discuss the opening up plans, to celebrate what is already going on as well as share information about finances and discuss, pray and look ahead together to the future. All members are encouraged to attend if they can and non-members are welcome too. If you cannot get on zoom, information will be shared with you in the usual ways.
Coming up:
Sunday 2nd May - Online service with sermon/in person family service at 11am
Sunday 9th May - Online service followed by zoom Church Meeting at 12.15pm
Sunday 16th May - join with our Baptist Family for a streamed YouTube service from Baptist Assembly at 10.30am (note earlier time) followed by zoom communion at 12.15pm
Sunday 23rd May - Online service with sermon/in person family service at 11am
Baptist Assembly:
Baptist Assembly Online – 13-16 May 2021
"We are very excited that, being an online event this year, Baptist Assembly 2021 can be made available to all, offering a unique opportunity to bring a large number of people together to join in worship, prayer, Bible study and consideration of current issues. The sessions will be free for anybody to join via our website – but register to join us and we’ll send you all the links you’ll need in advance. See our website for more about the weekend’s programme, including seminar topics, information about our keynote speaker Shane Claiborne, and registration. We hope you and your church family will be able to join us during the weekend"
Worship
Call to worship
As we gather to worship our Lord, we remember that he says He is the light of the world. Not just a gentle light, but a great light. As we worship Him this morning we pray that his light will shine bright in our lives. As we face dark times we pray that God's light will bring us peace, hope and show us the joy that we can still have in the dark. His light will shine and show us the way in the dark.
Here are the songs for worship. You may want to save the fourth one for before the sermon and the last one for after.
Tough Times
The last year has been tough on all of us, and we're thinking today about how we find help when it is tough.
What are you finding tough right now? How do you deal with the tough stuff? Do you face it head on? Do you hide it away? Do you get other people to help?
The Bible reminds us that we do not have to go through tough stuff alone. Philippians 4:13 says "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me".
Today we are talking about finding peace in the darkness and when we face difficult stuff it can feel like all the lights have been switched off. Jesus is with us at the hardest of times, and our passage today says that he is light, and the light shines in the darkness and that the darkness will not overcome it.
Take some time now to give the hard stuff to God. Lay it before him. You do not have to carry it alone.
Pray for those you know who are finding things particularly hard right now.
If you are feeling creative you might want to have a go at making a lantern and use it to help you pray. Details are here http://flamecreativekids.blogspot.com/2013/11/the-light-shines-in-darkness-john-1.html
Prayer
As we continue in prayer today we stand with our brothers and sisters across the world who are fighting for justice.
We pray particularly this week for the US after the verdict after the death of George Floyd and we pray for our own country as we have remembered the murder of Stephen Lawrence and the amount of work that continues to need to be done in the fight against racism.
We give thanks that justice has been done for George Floyd, but we pray that his death and everything that has flowed from it has not been in vain. We pray that God's justice and righteousness will flow like a never ending stream. We ask for God's grace and mercy to help us commit ourselves afresh to being people of justice.
We also remember in our prayers this week the people of India who are encountering a horrific wave of Covid-19 with a health system that is falling apart. We pray that the Government have wisdom. We pray peace in the grief. We pray an end to the pandemic.
Lord have mercy.
Amen
Sermon
Here is Claire with the sermon. She is speaking to us, this week, from John 1: 1-5. You can read it here.
Communion
If you cannot join us for communion on zoom at 12.15pm, the words we will be using are here.
Prepare your bread and wine and use these words as you remember the hope that Jesus brings in body broken and blood shed.
Do you not know,
Have you not heard?
That the day of the Lord is here?
The day of the Lord?
What day is this?
I hear no rolling thunder?
Where are the trumpet blasts?
I hear only the sound of scrambler bikes
and trams stopping by the Parade.
Squabbling children,
gossiping adults,
and the generators from the testing site.
Do you not know,
Have you not heard?
That the day of the Lord is here?
The day of the Lord?
Who is this Lord anyway?
I see no glorious robes?
Where is the magnificent triumph?
I see only children
and churches unable to open as they want,
frazzled parents
and struggling teenagers.
Do you not know,
Have you not heard?
That the day of the Lord is here?
The day of the Lord?
Today? On a Sunday?
But we haven’t done church ‘properly’ in over a year
Children are back at football
And the shops are open again.
If it stops raining
we might go for a walk again
No time for a Lord on a Sunday.
Do you not know,
Have you not heard?
That the day of the Lord is here?
The day of the Lord?
Here? In New Addington? In a pandemic?
Why would a Lord come here?
No one comes here
Unless they really have to.
It’s the end of the tram line.
Sometimes we feel like we’re forgotten
as decisions are made in places nothing like here.
Do you not know,
Have you not heard?
That the day of the Lord is here?
Here amongst the fly tipping
of another night,
Here where hidden behind closed doors
Are those fearful of re-entering the world
Here in the midst of a people
tired and worn out from the struggle.
Here
Now
In this place
At this time
With these people
For these people.
For us.
The Lord is here
Wisdom is with us.
The Lord is here
Wisdom is with us.
The Lord is here
Wisdom is with us.
In broken bread
We see broken bodies
In spilled blood
We see bitter tears
In broken bread
We see welcomed strangers
In spilled blood
We feel love poured out
In broken bread
We see the body of Christ
In poured wine
We taste the blood of new relationship
The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.
You proclaim the Lord’s death, light in the darkness, the day of the Lord is here.
Prayer of Thanks
Share the Bread and Wine
Do you not know,
Have you not heard?
That the day of the Lord is here?
Do you not know,
Have you not heard?
That the day of the Lord is here?
Send us out
In this place
Prophetic Community
Prophetic People
To make know the love of God
And proclaim the day of the Lord.
Adapted from ‘The Day of the Lord’ Eucharist http://www.dancingscarecrow.org.uk/Dancing_Scarecrow/Eucharists.html
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