Faith & Worship

The Revised Common Lectionary (RCL) offers a three-year cycle with four readings for every Sunday in the Church Year.

These readings are:
A Lesson from the Hebrew Scriptures (or Acts during the Season of Easter)
A Psalm
A Lesson from the Epistles or Acts
A Lesson from the Gospels

The following prayers follow a traditional form using the pattern of ACT (Adoration, Confession and Thanksgiving).

There is also an opening prayer which can be used at the beginning of a service.

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FIRST SUNDAY AFTER CHRISTMAS DAY
(Dec 26 - Jan 1)

Readings: 1Samuel 2: 18-20, 26, Psalm 148, Colossians 3:12-17, Luke 2:41-52

OPENING PRAYER

A lot has happened in the last week. Some of us have spent time travelling, maybe to the places that we grew up in to visit family and old friends. Gifts and greetings have been exchanged, carols have been sung to remind us of the birth of the Christ child. Now many are back at work and a sense of 'normality' is beginning to be felt again in our lives.
In our gospel reading we find a different Jesus to the one we left on Christmas morning. He has survived Herod's hunt for the firstborn in Bethlehem and has been quietly getting on with the business of growing up in and around the Carpenter's shop in Nazareth.

Father God, sometimes we forget that the Christmas story did not end in the stable but continued as Jesus grew into a man, almost unnoticed by the world apart from his appearance at the temple, his spiritual home on earth. As we close the pages of one year and begin the next chapter of our lives may we grow in faith, in wisdom and closer to you each and every day, to your praise and glory. Amen



ADORATION

For the joy of your presence
Changing and renewing us
Day by day
We offer you our praise
For the blessing you bring us
The outpouring of your love
Day by day
We offer you our praise
For peace beyond understanding
Blesséd assurance
Day by day
We offer you our praise
For the Word that endures
Teaches and challenges
Generation to generation
We offer you our praise


CONFESSION

Saving God, how easy to forget
The joy of Christmas morning
In the bustle of the moment
When pressures of this world
Obscure our vision of the next
How easy to forget the gift
So undeserved and free
With cards and baubles packed away
And  thank you letters sent
Forgive our short term memory
As one year leads to next
Lead us on a journey
To new beginnings
In our relationship with you
May we live in your presence
All the days of our lives. Amen.

THANKSGIVING

God of the journey from year to year
We offer you our thanks
For the patience you show us
When so often we cause you pain
For the kindness you show us
When we struggle to know how to pray
For the Grace shown to us
Even when we turn away
God of the journey from year to year
We offer you our thanks
Take the imperfect that we are
And use us as your hands
Take the words we try to say
That some might understand
That Love came down at Christmas
To bring God's Grace to man
And walked the path we follow
Toward a Promised Land
God of the journey from year to year
We offer you our thanks

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