Hello and welcome to the DIY Sunday Service Kit for June 25th., 2023.
We are living through quite uncertain-seeming times, although of course we know that the God Who rules the world and limits the excesses human beings can run to in His world is the One Who actually holds the whole thing in His hand.
Nonetheless, it seems like a good time to be dealing with the certainties and the foundations of our understanding of ourselves and of what's important in our world.
Today we'll be exposing two heresies that undermine our understanding of things and cause us grief, as we consider the biggest and most fundamental truths of the Gospel. It'll be mainly the last one, but I hope the other two bits will be interesting too!
If you'd like a short sneak preview, click the pic below!
Let's pray
Lord and Father, we thank you for the certainties of your Word and the foundations for our lives found in the sure and certain tenets of the Gospel.
Inspire our hearts today with these things to build resilience in ourselves in living lives of worship and service in your Kingdom, the Kingdom which will always prevail and never ends.
And may the worship of our lives bring you pleasure and be to your glory.
We ask for Jesus' sake.
Amen.
Let's pray
Russia
As things stand, Yevgeny Prigozhin who leads the Wagner Group fighting for Russia across the world as well as in Ukraine seems to have stopped marching on Moscow and is now moving to Belarus. Wagner fighters are being absorbed into the Russian military.
Wagner fighters have now begun to leave the southern city of Rostov-on-Don where their mutiny began less than 24 hours ago, according to credible reports.
Insecurity in threatened dictatorial regimes ... such as we have seen I response to the Wagner revolt ... often leads to crack-downs on persecuted minorities.
Let's pray for our Christian brothers and sisters in Russia today.
Nigeria
Despite a government-imposed curfew in Plateau State this week, Fulani militants killed 15 Christians in the Bwai Village of Mangu in north central Nigeria.
County Chairman Markus Artu declared a curfew beginning Sunday due to ongoing violence. This was the second time in a month when Fulani extremists violated a curfew – more than 40 Christians were killed last month near Mangu.
The attacks come after a slate of violence in the state of recently inaugurated governor Barr. Caleb Mutfwang.
“I have asked God to strengthen my own heart,” said Mutfwang as he visited the area. “…This magnitude of madness and carnage has never happened in the Mangu Local Government Area. There have been isolated and sporadic incidents and you begin to ask why and why now. But we have come to encourage you as leaders of our people to know that God is on the throne."
Let's pray for the safety of Christians being attacked like tis regularly in North Nigeria by Muslim Fulani tribesmen.
Iraq
After years of persecution and destruction, the Christian in community in Iraq takes a step forward as they start a new television channel conducted entirely in Syriac, the traditional language of Christians in the area.
The public TV channel may indicate a step forward in the wider acceptance of Christians across Iraq.
Twenty years ago, there were 1.5 million Christians in the country. According to the United States’ yearly report on International Religious Freedom, this number is down to just 150,000 Christians in 2023 due to multiple wars and unrest.
But as Iraq continues to demonstrate its acceptance of other religions, there is an increase in hope for the centuries-old Christian population to return to their home country – the home of Abraham, the home of our brothers and sisters in Christ.
Let's give thanks for the improvement in conditions for believers in Iraq and pray that our God would bless the people who have remained, give the desire to return to believers who have left because of the wars and build His church in Iraq through their witness and the of the new public TV channel.
Click the Bible below for today's reading
Here's the studio cam video of the sermon
Let's pray
Now To him who is able to keep you from stumbling
and to present you before his glorious presence
without fault and with great joy
—to the only God our Saviour be
glory, majesty, power and authority,
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
before all ages,
now and forevermore! Amen.
Thanks for being with us again this week.
Please feel free to get in touch if we can be of help, and please find below the link to our giving page if you would like to join us in supporting the Lord's work through y GRWP, which produces this DIY Sunday Service Kit.
Welcome to the DIY Sunday Service Kit for June 18th 2023, which is going to look a little bit different because for reasons of poor Internet connectivity is going to have to be tapped out on my phone!
Let's pray
Lord and loving Heavenly Father we thank you that today we are able to come to pour out our hearts to you in worship and in prayer.
We thank you that in your Word you also open your heart to us, and we thank you that we have the privilege of being able to open your Word and read it freely today.
May our hearts align with yours as we experience today what it means to be united with Christ and with your people by your grace and through the presence of your Holy Spirit in our hearts.
"Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behaviour. But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation – if you continue in your faith, established and firm, and do not move from the hope held out in the gospel. This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant. Now I rejoice in what I am suffering for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church."
Welcome to the DIY Sunday Service Kit almost half-way now through this sunny month of June!
This week we're in our last but one session in. Colossians concentrating on Jesus and finding out why it really matters that He is really God.
Here's a quick insight into where we start with this ... but this is certainly not where we're going to end up with it!
Now for a really sound, tried and tested expression of Christian faith, expressed afresh for us here through the ministry of Celtic Worship.
We do well to make these sentiments our own as we sing ...
Let's pray for our world in its brokenness, and
give thanks for the Lord's interventions in turning back its darkness.
We pray today for
Kherson
The blowing of the Kakhovka dam near Kherson has not only taken an unknown number of both Ukrainian and Russian lives, but knocked out very extensive irrigation of one of the most productive areas of food production in Ukraine ... once known as 'Russia's bread basket' because of its huge agricultural production.
Agricultural experts warn fields in southern Ukraine could "turn into deserts as early as next year", as vital irrigation systems, which depend on the vast Kakhovka reservoir, cease to function.
Even before the cost of the current losses is calculated, international markets have taken note. The flooding helped to trigger a sharp rise in global wheat prices, which will have knock-on effects in the poorer countries of the world (which rely heavily on food-grade Ukrainian wheat) and on livestock feeds in the western world affecting prices in our shops.
Drinking water for many towns and cities beneath the dam is also bound to be affected, but the effects of this have as yet to be calculated.
Water is a necessity. Let's pray for everybody affected by this terrible event.
Mostar
The Evangelical Church of Bosnia-Herzegovina is starting next week to run its programme of camps for children from all sorts of home backgrounds, which will run throughout the summer.
We've seen these camps develop over the last twenty years from camps where the sessions all fell to people like our second son Ben, into camps where those leaders have brought on young people from the various churches who now do a lot of the sessions themselves ... but with missionaries and church leaders like Ben now supporting from the background. Somehow, though, it always seems that crises emerge that make this a really busy time for elders and missionaries in any event!
Let's pray for mature and new leaders, for strength, wisdom and enthusiasm, and that children and young people for whom this is their only time away throughout the year will have a great time at camp and come to know the Lord Jesus for themselves.
Planning for a Conference on Reaching Rural Wales
Our focus on Rural Wales at the recent ministers' conference has fired up interest in a conference to stimulate and communicate between instances of pioneer outreach and church revitalisation in rural Wales, which y GRWP had been working towards for some time.
Please pray for plans that are being laid for an autumn conference to energise recent interest and galvanise it into action would prosper and bear fruit!
and give thanks for ...
Bala Ministers' Conference
We asked for prayer for Simon speaking at the Bala Ministers' Conference last Tuesday.
It was deemed by others present to have gone very well and we now both give thanks for that ... because it could easily have back-fired ... and for those who were stirred and stimulated by having been there on the night.
(See above for prayers prompted by how things went!)
The re-opening of our 'candidacy' for the station café
We are now about ten days from having been assured that we are still very much in the running again for tenancy of Llandovery Station Café.
As many of you will know, this looked very much as if it had disappeared as an option.
Let's give thanks as we pray for this to go through and be made possible in the providence of our God.
Good contacts for our friends at Pantycelyn during yr Urdd Eisteddfod
Finally, although we were disappointed not to have the Station Café open by the time the Urdd took place in Llandovery, we were really encouraged by accounts of meetings and ministry that flowed from the exhibition and hospitality laid on by our friends at Memorial Chapel throughout the Urdd week.
Let's rejoice with those who rejoice and pray that the Lord will bring lasting spiritual fruit from our friends' labours.
Lord, hear our thanks and our prayers from your Heavenly throne and show your mercy and your grace in your world.
We ask for Jesus' sake.
AMEN.
As we prepare to read Scripture,
we make the words of this next song our prayer
Please click on this Bible to be taken to today's Bible reading
Click on the little preacher below to go to the transcript and audio version of today's sermon,
or scroll on down for the studiocam video
Let's pray
We give you thanks our Lord and God that reflecting through your Word
on your person,
on your Divine greatness and Glory,
feeds our souls.
Take us into the coming week we pray with soul-protectingly large thoughts of Jesus,
and may our thoughts in your presence guard our souls.
We ask for Jesus' sake.
AMEN.
We have a song to play out with today, but first, if you would like to join us in worshipping by giving t the work of y GRWP please click the offering bag below.
If we can be of help to you or if we can usefully pray with you about an issue on your heart, please contact Simon on 07748 44958 (it's helpful if you can text or WhatsApp first to make sure I'm neither driving Norwich someone at that point, but in emergencies please feel free to try to phone through as soon as you need to!)
Here's the bag, and the 'play-out' is below it.
Have a great week!
We play out today with City Alight ... 'There is One Gospel'
Welcome to this short form DIY Sunday Service Kit this week which comes to you in this hot, dry week around the themes of Psalm 32 and with a (video only) Word for the Week from Psalm 32:4
Let's pray
Lord and father we thank you that in our weakness you are our strength, that in the parched tome in our lives you provide us with living water through a living relationship with the Living God, and the when we have been battered by hard experience in our weakness, our lack of wisdom or our own deliberate choice you stand by to renew or strength.
Lead us afresh to yourself today, we pray.
Lead us to the Rock that is higher than us.
Take us into your Word and lead us to listen to you so that you may plant our feet securely in a firm place, and we stand in the strength our God supplies.
We ask for Jesus' sake.
AMEN.
Let's read Psalm 32
Here is the Word for the Week
Now here's a word of testimony around this theme and
a song that goes with it
Pray
Lord and Father we confess before you that even this week we have had things in our lives to regret having thought, done, not thought of and not done when we should have done.
Like the person in that video, we have had things that we might've preferred to keep out of the sight of the Father we know actually sees it all and knows us through and through.
Please forgive us for our lack of openness, sincerity and integrity before you.
We thank you that, as you know every inclination of the thoughts of our hearts ... all the time ... you have made provision for our sins and our failures at the Cross and from the grave of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
Will you please give us true repentance and grant us genuine, Holy Spirit given amendment of life ... and lead us in your everlasting way, strengthening us to walk more closely with you in the week that lies ahead.
We ask for Jesus' sake.
Amen.
Let's pray
May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face shine on us –
so that His ways may be known on earth, His salvation among all nations.
May the peoples praise you, God;
may all the peoples praise you
May the nations be glad and sing for joy, for you rule the peoples with equity and guide the nations of the earth.
May the peoples praise you, God; may all the peoples praise you.
AMEN.
Thanks for being with us online today.
If we can be of help and/ or pray for you, please feel free to contact us on 07748 644958 (please text or WhatsApp message first in case I'm already with someone else) or email HoWChaplain@gmail.com
And if you are able to share with us in supporting the work of y GRWP, please click the offering bag below to be taken to our giving page. Thanks.
