We invite our Christian Brother’s and Sister’s in our town and local area to join together in the unity of prayer, during the Week of Prayer of Christian Unity.
Details of these services, all held in Bellshill Central Parish Church, are listed in the poster and we encourage everyone to come along when they can, regardless of race, age, background or faith as we come together to pray.
Each day during Week of Prayer for Christian Unity – #WPCU and #WPCU2020 – we will post daily readings and reflections to help you in this week’s prayer journey if you are not able to join us in person each day.
Sunday worship continues at 11am each Sunday morning at 346 Main Street – Bellshill Central Parish Church. Our church is Central to Christ, Central to Bellshill and Central to YOU! For 147 years we have shouted out the Good News of Jesus Christ and of His love for one and all. We offer a warm and generous welcome to all, on Sundays or throughout the week at any of our week day activities and groups. Our minister, Rev’d Kevin de Beer, loves being in our Faith Family and reaching outwards into the communities of Bellshill Town Centre, Mossend and Orbiston. As the Church of Scotland Parish for Central Bellshill, including the Town Centre, we want to you be part of what is a wonderful community of fellowship and faith. Please simply #comeasyouare!
Sunday morning at 11am our minister continues his 7 week series of Jesus in Samaria – this week The Neighbour! Just come along and join us at 11.00am at the church at 346 Main Street right at the Centre of our town. The readings are Genesis 4:1-11 and Luke 10:25-37. Our hymns include: Jesus calls us here to meet him, When I needed a neighbour, Make me a channel and Love is the touch of intangible joy. We finish with a South African song – Amen we praise your name O God.
Our Sunday services are live streams via our Church Website and YouTube Channel and are uploaded for viewing later at your leisure. Services are able to be reproduced on Tape, CD and DVD. Portable DVD players are also available. Please just get in touch with Drew Aitken at the Church.
WEEK OF PRAYER FOR CHRISTIAN UNITY
Takes place from 18th to the 25th January. To mark the end of Christian Unity Week there is an ecumenical service here at Bellshill Central Parish Church on Sunday 26th January at 7pm. There will be an offering for St Andrews Hospice uplifted. The service is organised by the Lanarkshire Organists Society. If you would like to join the augmented choir, please come along on 17th January at 7.15pm.
Town Services for Week of Prayer for Christian Unity takes place here in Bellshill Central Parish Church as follows throughout the week of prayer. Please join us and share the info as widely as possible to ensure our Christian Brothers and Sisters can take part in community corporate prayer.
THESE SERVICES WILL LAST AROUND 30 MINUTES AND WILL BE LED BY DIFFERENT FOLKS FROM BELLSHILL.
Saturday 18 January at 12.00 NOON
Monday 20 January at 1PM
Tuesday 21 January at 7.30PM
Wednesday 22 January at 1PM
Thursday 23 January at 7.30PM
Friday 24 January at 3.00PM
Saturday 25 January at 12.00 NOON
Please enter the church via the main front doors or the side door access down the path where disabled access is available.
We invite our Christian Brother’s and Sister’s in our town and local area to join together in the unity of prayer, during the Week of Prayer of Christian Unity.
Details of these services, all held in Bellshill Central Parish Church, are listed in the poster and we encourage everyone to come along when they can, regardless of race, age, background or faith as we come together to pray.
Each day during Week of Prayer for Christian Unity – #WPCU and #WPCU2020 – we will post daily readings and reflections to help you in this week’s prayer journey if you are not able to join us in person each day.
Our prayer for Christian unity is deeply rooted in the Bible. We pray for unity because Jesus prayed that His disciples would be one, that the world might believe (John 17:20-21). St Paul also urged the churches to which he wrote to recognise their unity in Christ, even though there was much diversity within them (1 Corinthians 12:12-27).
For the churches in Malta, the Bible has special relevance for the shared life of the churches there, for the Gospel first came to Malta in the events that are told in the Acts of the Apostles, where St Paul and those with him encountered unusual kindness from the inhabitants. Many people in Britain and Ireland will have visited Malta on holiday and seen the place where these events are believed to have taken place. This is a reminder that Christianity is not merely a spirituality, but a faith rooted in events in human history: the redemption of humanity and the whole of creation. The unity for which we pray therefore serves to make Christ known in the world.
The story of St Paul’s being shipwrecked on Malta in Acts 27 and 28 leads us, during this Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, to reflect upon many aspects of our own lives and the lives of our churches. As we approach one another, seeking unity, we recognize that we sometimes carry baggage from history, tradition and cultural expectation, which can weigh us down and threaten to overwhelm us. There is the danger that, in the face of that experience, we might lose sight of the hope which first called us and so give up reaching for the light which Christ offers us.
St Paul challenged his fellow travellers, sailors, soldiers and prisoners to keep up their courage. In the face of apparent desperation and hopelessness, we are challenged to put our trust in God and allow ourselves to be held and carried through the waters. There will be times when we are broken, as individuals and as churches, and looking back we shall see not just the one set of footprints in the sand, but hundreds, as we are surrounded and supported by those who love us. There will be times when, standing in the storms of our own making, we are challenged to demonstrate unusual kindness in the face of worldly indifference.
To demonstrate unusual kindness is to see the sister and brother in the monster’s shame and know that they too are children of God. To demonstrate unusual kindness is to give without counting the cost, and to allow ourselves to be given unto without questioning worth. As we reflect upon, and pray for, Christian unity, we acknowledge the injury that we have caused, the pain that we carry, the baggage that we must jettison. We pray for Christian unity as the place from which we can move onward in faith and in hope for the redemption of the world and the restoration of creation.
For this year’s Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, we accompany the churches of Malta, praying with and alongside them, praying also for them in their Christian journey as they seek the unity for which Christ prayed. And we rejoice with them that Malta traces its Christian origins back to the time of the Apostles. And in so doing, we enter into the drama of St Paul, those that travelled with him, and the inhabitants whom they met, to discover our shared unity, and in so doing recognise the importance of unusual acts of kindness that bear witness to the Gospel of peace and reconciliation.
BELLSHILL: CENTRAL PARISH CHURCH OF SCOTLAND 