Part 1: NURC Blog for Sunday 28th June 2020

The steadfast love of the Lord is established forever.
His faithfulness is as firm as the heavens.
The Lord invites us and welcomes us.
Let us worship the Lord.


​In the name of……………………………………?

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The gift of following.

You have given me a disciples tongue to speak words which build up a word planted in the right season.

You have given me a disciple’s ear to listen for your guidance through each changing scene.

You have given me a disciple’s heart to prefer your way rather than to turn back and give up.

You have given me a disciple’s peace to accept mockery and unjust blows without retaliation.

Lord, help me to follow where you lead, using the best of our gifts to remain faithful to the end.

Amen.

Taken from Season of the Spirit adapted by Richard Church (Isaiah 50: 4-9a)

I am writing this blog on Wednesday 17th June, as I look back to March 23rd, the day lockdown started for me & Pauline, I set myself the task of writing a blog per week, one thing I have learnt of many varied things is how difficult it is to write fresh thoughts every week, I have the greatest respect for all those ordained and lay preachers that are able to do that.  

I was concerned at the start of the year about achieving the goal of nine sermons, during these last weeks I have found it very beneficial to put my thoughts on paper, aware that my audience may be small, but happy in my own mind that in some small way I was acting in a Christian way. During the last few weeks reality has started to kick in, we as a Church have been looking at if & how we can open for prayer, this has & does involve a lot of work, we ask our Lords guidance to do what is correct & proper, as you read this part one of my blog the answers to those questions may already be in place, add onto that my own Trust work and my work on the Huguenot council and suddenly things are starting to rack up, so it is with a certain amount of sadness that I felt this would be my last weekly blog for a time, I intend to follow on with a Monthly ​​blog, and by then let us all pray that we will find a way to be able to worship together, it is a different world & I personally feel that we have over these weeks benefited greatly as a Church Family from pastoral contact, with John sending out the weekly news sheet including the URC devotions, and from being able to watch & listen to God words through many media channels.

​You might now be thinking let’s get on with it? So I will start we have an image of a door, in today’s world we tend to be security conscious. In the past your doors may have been unlocked all the time, I was brought up in Ilford, my mother had been an Nurse during the war, she became a go to person for so many things, from birth to death, we had people down our road with may skill sets all of which were utilized at one time or the other. Now our homes are identified as places of privacy and retreat, social action would normally take place elsewhere maybe on neutral ground, not so through the pandemic, face to face meetings have been on hold, and only recently have families been able to meet up ( socially distanced of course) Jesus would under normal circumstances stress the importance of going out and interacting with others “ whoever welcomes you” we may not be able to go out in the name of Jesus, knocking on the imaginary door – but we can all still spread his love in so many other ways.

Sources: © ROOTS for Churches Ltd. Reproduced with permission.