Category: #wpcu2020

Day 3 Keep up your courage

• Acts 27. 22, 34

“I urge you now to keep up your courage, for there will be no loss of life among you, but only of the ship … none of you will lose a hair from your heads …”

• Psalm 27
• Mathew 11:28-30

Reflection

Keep up your courage when the storms of life wash you up on an unexpected shore. Keep up your courage take barricades down welcome the stranger become the guest. Keep up your courage listen to the other seek to understand disagree agreeably. Keep up your courage when the ship runs aground  prepare a new vessel chart another course. Keep up your courage stowaways, castaways whatever our crew it’s all hands on deck creation made new.

Prayer

God of mercy, lost and disheartened, we turn to You. Instil in us Your hope and courage. May our churches strive for the unity for which Your Son prayed on the eve of His passion. We ask this through Him who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit for ever and ever. Amen.

Questions

• What are the practices that you can use to keep up your courage?
• What are your hopes and fears for the churches in your area?
• How might you keep up your courage together to chart a course into the future?

Go and Do

(see www.ctbi.org.uk/goanddo)

Global: Read and respond to the stories of perilous journeys by sea.

Local: Provide welcome and hospitality for those recently arrived into the UK and Ireland.

Personal: Reflecting on your own journey, how might you assist others on journeying today?

Day 2 Seek and Show Christ’s Light

• Acts 27:20

“When neither sun nor stars appeared for many days, and no small tempest raged, all hope of our being saved was at last abandoned.”

• Psalm 119:105-110
• Mark 4:35-41

Reflection

TRANSFUSION

I believe another

Not Him.

A cup of bitterness taints my being.

My eyes fail me,

I lose the light

and my life disengages

and halts.

Movement, spied in my darkness

frightens then brings relief.

I am not dying alone

But dying we are.

The battering storm of hope denied,

Will abandon us to fate.

A flicker flecks my blindness

I fall prostrate

As flecks materialise into Him,

My true and tender Father.

Held in His unbreakable arms

I still…

The storm may do its worst.

Slathered in His salve of love

Hope’s transfusion

Gently renews my being

Do not fear the pain

It sings the song of life.

Prayer

Father, Your precious word illumines our steps and without You we remain lost and disorientated.

Holy Spirit, teach us through Your word and each other to travel our Father’s path together, walking gently on Creation.

May each gathering of Your people in churches everywhere crave Your guiding, consoling and transforming presence.

Give us the honesty we need to recognise when we lose or obscure Your light for others.

Give us grace to hold onto You, ready and able to share Your light.

We ask this in the name of Your Son Jesus, who calls us His followers, to be light to the world. Amen.

Questions

• In what circumstances do I lose sight of God?
• We prayed that we might walk gently on Creation. What is my responsibility confronted by the storm of climate change?
• What responsibility do we have as a community to address climate change?

Go and Do

(see www.ctbi.org.uk/goanddo)

Global: Take action by adding your voice to the call to address the climate emergency.

Local: Are your churches involved in the eco-church/ eco-congregations award?

Personal: Individual actions on reducing carbon are not enough to make the difference but together they add up.

Day 1 Reconciliation

• Acts 27: 18-19, 21

“We were being pounded by the storm so violently that on the next day they began to throw the cargo overboard and on the third day with their own hands they threw the ship’s tackle overboard… Since they had been without food for a long time, Paul then stood up among them and said, “Men, you should have listened to me and not have set sail from Crete and thereby avoided this damage and loss.”

• Psalm 85
• Luke 18: 9-14

Reflection

To live an untethered life means that we may well find ourselves at the mercy of wind and wave. Besieged by storm and circumstance, carried by the tide, thrown off course, we can find ourselves run aground, clinging to the hope – that we might loosen our grip of individual claim and right, and hold to a shared ownership of this rock of truth.

Fissure cracks unearthed by seismic change, fresh and raw – now open to the elements – make it easy for fracture and the heartbreak of division and disunity to split our truth apart.

But as we find each precious piece, like flotsam and jetsam washed up on distant shore and held safe in the hands of someone else, might we come together and re-form?

As a new picture emerges a re-seeing re-imagining reconciling of ourselves and each other.

We are all at the mercy of the storm regardless of where we stand.

Port or starboard, aft or stern it’s the same boat, traversing the same waters.

Whether we sink or swim might well depend upon who or what we cling to or let go of.

Prayer

Reconciling God, as we feel the pain of past mistakes, shy away and retreat to individual strongholds; help us surrender a false sense of who we are, all that tethers us, and all that we hold precious.

Bind us to humility and compassion, as we learn together, to receive from You, abide in You and Your love. Amen.

Questions

• What are the important things we need to carry with us as we journey together towards unity?
• What things might we need to let go of as we journey together towards unity? What challenges does that bring?
• What are our shared hopes for our community? What might our common prayers for our community be?

Go and Do

(see www.ctbi.org.uk/goanddo)

Global: Be inspired to unity by the churches of South Sudan and their work for reconciliation.

Local: How might the churches in your area dialogue around the issues affecting your wider community?

Personal: Seek reconciliation for a broken relationship in your life.