Skip to main content

November 2015 Prayer Column

Image
By

Greater works (John 14:12)

I read a really good book on holiday.  It argued that we should seek more healing in our churches with the aid of the Holy Spirit.  Healing and deliverance was what Jesus did all the time, and what the early church continued to do (as Jesus had promised they should), as in the book of Acts, and for the next few hundred years.  But then from the time of Constantine such good works were discouraged and declined.  Some said that only the holiest saints were fit to do it; others that is was presump-tuous to try and copy Jesus.  Later, some claimed that miracles such as healing has ceased with the apostles; and nearer our own time many have declared that today we should know better than to believe that such supernatural things ever happened at all. 
Thus, by one means or another, acts of healing and wholeness, once the lifeblood of the Christian faith, have been all but throttled – despite the occasional outbreaks of Pentecostal-style spiritual blessings at various times and in different parts of the church.  This includes the ‘enthusiasm’ of the early Methodists and, in the last hundred years, diverse Pentecostal and Charismatic movements.  The writer of this book urges that we open ourselves more widely to the movement of God’s Holy Spirit; and urgently seek the fruit (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control); and also all the blessings of healing and wholeness he longs to give to the church for the glory of God in the world.  Worth a prayer?  With His power?
The Healing Reawakening: Reclaiming our lost inheritance. 
By Francis MacNutt, Chosen Books, 2005.

Roy LS

A prayer for each week

Thank you, O my Father, for giving us your Son, and leaving your Spirit till the work on earth is done.  Please Lord, help us to sing this with our lives.  Amen.

Holy Spirit, Teacher, please come and make your home in our hearts and minds, leading us into all your truth, through Jesus, our Lord and Saviour.  Amen.

Holy Spirit, Helper, please show us the vastness of your resources for living, and the depths of our daily need, and fill us with your presence.  Amen.

Holy Spirit, Counsellor, indwelling and ever present, please open our inner ears to your advice, and give us the sense to heed what you say.  Amen.

Holy Spirit, Guide, knowing us better than we do ourselves – our past, our problems, and our potential in Jesus, please keep us on your chosen path.  Amen.

Your own prayers


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Message from the Link

By
D ISSUE 16 OCTOBER 2012 ear Friends How many times have you heard people say in your church ‘Well, I didn’t know about that!’  Quickly followed by, ‘Well, if you read the notices …’ Communication within churches can be wonderful, it can be a little frustrating and it can be never quite what we had hoped.  The same is true across the Circuit, and very soon we will be reviewing methods and means of communication.  Part of this review may include looking at ‘The Link’ and ‘Outlook’ in the light of our focus upon Mission.  For example, it may be that we move more towards what has happened and how it worked to encourage churches to think about the stories that they have to share, rather than being a notice sheet of things to come. Which leads me to ask, have we ever wondered about who it is we are trying to communicate to, and about what?  For example, there have been many adverts in ‘ The Link’ about coffee mornings and cake....
Post a Comment
Read more

Fairtrade Summer Fair - 31 May 2014

By
Did you know that it is Fairtrade ’s 20th birthday this year? Yes, 2014 marks 20 years since the first Fairtrade product was sold in the UK. In that time, Fairtrade supporters have helped make huge progress, so that millions of farmers, workers and their families now have a brighter future. To celebrate this milestone, we will be having a: Fairtrade Summer Fair at Calverley Methodist Church on Saturday 31st May from 10 a.m. to 12 noon.  Please come along and give your support. There will be refreshments, Fairtrade tasting, a quiz with prize and lots of lovely Fairtrade products for sale.
Post a Comment
Read more

News from Allerton Methodist Church

By
Allerton’s Community Play & Learn Hub In October we were approached by the Bradford Community Play Partnership to ask if they could use the church premises for their Allerton & Lower Grange Community Learning Hub. They had been running this from Ladyhill Park since 1st April but needed somewhere more suitable for the winter months. Supporting local families and linking with 5 local primary schools, 7 volunteers, including 3 of our own congregation, are working together to provide ‘Bags of Creativity’ during the pandemic. The group have provided over 5,000 packs to children, signed up over 700 children to a Summer Reading Challenge, engaged with 1,500 children in the Light Project with a physical literacy music lesson in the car park, with pallet Christmas trees, a grotto, forest school activities including making Bird Cake and incorporating: Exercise Counting, Measuring, Weighing Investigating natural materials Growing Sunflowers Reading Music The Hub will continue until Februa...
Post a Comment
Read more