vestry prayer - ordinary 9

Gracious and loving God as we come into your presence this morning we pray that you will make us like the man who built his house upon the rock, that you would enable us to be wise and to discern your word for each one of us today.
Lord we are mindful that at times we can be foolish and not do that which we ought to, but Lord we ask that you would enable us to worship in spirit and in truth today.
Prepare us for receiving your word and assist your servant as they bring your word to us today, may they bring a word that will speak to each person gathered here today, and give us something to take into the coming week with us.
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit we bring our prayers.
AMEN

Africa Day, Wesley Day

Yesterday was Africa Day and Wesley Day and I was planned to take two services with the on trial local preacher I am mentoring. Sylvia is from Zimbabwe so it was appropriate that she should take Africa Day while I did the Wesley Day topic.
She spoke with some passion about her beloved country (Africa)about its beauty, its scenery, its multi cultural population and its wild animals in their natural habitat. She shared a story about offering to take one of her sons to the safari park to see the lions etc., he asked are they wild and she said well not really and he said he had seen the real thing so no he didn't want to go to the safari park. She spoke on the lectionary readings from Isaiah and Matthew and tied them into the Africa topic exceptionally well. There were many favourable comments made directly to her and to me about her and she was invited to speak at a ladies meeting at the one church (something I have never been asked to do at this particular church in over 10 years of preaching there.
While all this was very good she gave me a newspaper to have a look at that really brought home the truth of the bad situation in Africa. I have scanned the front page item and hopefully have reproduced it above - please read it and pray for Africa.

Depressed?? Don't be!!

I was out preaching with my on note preacher this morning so obviously was not at my home church. I have just received an email from our church treasurer with some comments and the weekly notices attached and I really felt I would like to share the comments with a wider audience - it really does say something that I think is quite encouraging. Just by explanation Barry had a minor operation in the week which involved him staying in hospital overnight. Richard is very ill. Gill, Otto and Max are former members at Pleck who moved to Oxford, Otto and Gill are both doctors.

Hello one and all.

Thank you for your prayer, phone calls and good wishes following my brief experience of hospital food.
Scars and stones are on view: 10p a time - proceeds to Christian Aid.

Please continue to pray for Zimbabwe.
Pray also for Richard and Lee, getting married next week (should have been August) so that they can share a few precious days (perhaps weeks) together. Miracles still happen, prayer is powerful and Pleck's prayers work!

We went to Oxford yesterday and met up with Gill and Max. Otto was on call, we visited him at the hospital and managed 17 and a half minutes of quality time with him - his bleeper went 5 times in the 25 minutes.we were with him.
They send their love to all at Pleck and hope to be up before Christmas.

As you see from the notices, we were £19 short of last year's Christian Aid total as we went to press, then Margaret Catton arrived at church this morning with an envelope from a resident in Mulhouse Court containing £20, so we've broken last year's total and as we have been promised another donation of £50 from someone else, I'm going to try for a World record for Pleck. £70 more will do it!

A girl (young lady), from down the road arrived this morning, she's doing a sponsored walk for a bowel cancer charity tomorrow and was looking for sponsors. She went away with £30, a smile on her face and a promise to come back next week to let us know how she got on.
I find the people of PMC amazing. We've raised all that for Christian Aid, more than expected for Rwanda, loads of stuff for the Glebe and then £30 for a stranger!

We truly are too blessed to be depressed.

Barry

I am very Rich!

I mentioned earlier in the week about counting our blessings and that I had come across a website some time ago which told me I was far better off than I would ever imagined when compared to the rest of the world.
I checked it again when I found it the other day and I find I am now in the top 1% of the richest people in the world.
I have put the link on the side of the blog that you might want to try yourself but be warned you might get a shock.

Revival Fires & Wesley Day

A bit of a tenuous link her in one sense but perhaps not in another. First point is I have received an email today from somebody who has been to the revival fires meeting in Dudley and said they felt a real sense of the presence of God and that there were people who were healed.
Second point is that I have been thinking about the fact that tomorrow is Wesley Day and while I knew that Mr Wesley had been listening to Luther's preface to the book of Romans that was all I knew. I have just read it and I think it is extremely powerful stuff and I could imagine if it were read by a gifted orator it would be the sort of thing that would make the hairs stand up on the back of your neck. I could see how someone could say they felt their heart strangely warmed. If you haven't read it I would recommend you have a look at it and see for yourself.
You can check it out here http://www.ccel.org/l/luther/romans/pref_romans.html

Vestry Prayer Ordinary 8

Loving Lord the God of history and the extraordinary, we thank you that although we are back in what is called ordinary time, with you there is always possibility for something out of the ordinary.
We thank you that we can gather today and are mindful that today is also designated Wesley Day when we commemorate the role of both John and Charles Wesley in their contribution to the life of the church universal.
We ask you to be with N...., one of Mr Wesley's preachers as they break open your word to us today.May we all be blessed and perhaps even feel our hearts strangely warmed as we bring our worship and our our voices to the thousand tongues singing our redeemers praise.
We ask all these things in and through the name of Jesus. Amen.

Count your blessings!

I am preparing to go out to speak at a meeting in a church I have never been to, having been invited by a colleague at work who reminded me this afternoon that I had said my topic would be 'Count you blessings'. My wife is coming with me so we will sing the hymn by Johnson Oatman Junior which was published in 1897 but still has a lot to say to us today. I was having a conversation today with another colleague at work about the tragic events that have been happening the past couple of weeks and the death tolls in these events. I am grateful for all the British weather that we live in what is a relatively safe haven with heat and light and running water and that according to a website I looked at recently but can't remember the link - I am in the top 5% of the worlds richest people, and there I thought I was poor.
I may well return to this topic and if I can find the website again I will put a link to it here so that you can look how rich you are!!