Comments, complaints, broken links, disappointed hopes - please contact the caretaker.

31/07/2009

Paul's Personal Pages

[Paul's Personal Pages] [Contact Us]

Christians Together in Retford

Week of Prayer for Christian Unity

Prayers for Unity: Wednesday January 18th 2006

The Marks of the Church

Response:

We believe in one, holy, catholic and apostolic church.

All May we be united:

one, holy, catholic and apostolic.

1) One united Church

Reading: John 17:20-26.

Commentary:

We are members of different churches, divided amongst ourselves, with divergent traditions and histories, we have separate ways to take decisions and do so according to different priorities, using different words to describe our faith.

How are we one church?

We are all disciples of Jesus Christ,
All redeemed by God’s gracious action,
Baptised into Christ’s death and his resurrection.
We share the common foundation of Scripture
We are one in obedience to the Holy Spirit, and
United in worship of the one God.

We are divided, and we are united.

How many different churches are represented here, and how many are not here?

Prayer:

Let us pray first for each separate congregation

Action:

A ribbon round the whole group.

Prayer:

Let us pray that we may reach out to one another so that our unity in Christ may be expressed in growing visible unity.

Response:

We believe in one, holy, catholic and apostolic church.

All May we be united:

one, holy, catholic and apostolic.

2) A holy Church

Reading: Matthew 18.15-22

Commentary:

Each of our communities is holy, a community of saints serving God, sharing holy worship made holy, consecrated, by God’s blessing through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Each of our communities is less than holy in our behaviour, in our treatment of one another, in our weakness of faith and poverty of prayer.

In this church we ask for your prayers in particular: this holy place has been corrupted by the actions of one member, by our failure of vigilance and the way we have been used. Please pray for our community in All Hallows Church, for healing and forgiveness, for the re-discovery of holiness.

Action:

§ Light a candle as symbol of purity: and each represented church to light one from it, and each absent church.

Prayer:

Let us pray that each of our communities may be holy, and be made holy.

Response:

We believe in one, holy, catholic and apostolic church.

All May we be united:

one, holy, catholic and apostolic.

3) A Catholic church

Reading: 1 Corinthians 12: 12-26

Commentary:

‘Catholic’ is the least understood of the marks of the church. It does not mean Roman Catholic, or Old Catholic, nor does it designate any particular tradition. Catholic means all-embracing, God’s arms wide open to welcome all who turn to him.

None of us, however wide our boundaries, can claim to be catholic: by definition we organize ourselves into groups, into church families, which exclude others – each of us works within boundaries which divide us from the non-Christian world, and from one another.

But by bringing our differences together in this one place, we can enjoy a more catholic faith. A catholic faith is not about uniformity, nor even agreement. It is about celebrating our differences and acknowledging them all as gifts from God to be offered to God.

What is distinctive, different, about each church represented here?

Prayer:

So let us celebrate our differences, and offer them to one another, and to Christ.

Response:

We believe in one, holy, catholic and apostolic church.

All May we be united:

one, holy, catholic and apostolic.

4) An Apostolic Church

Reading: 1 Corinthians 4:8-13

Commentary:

We are an apostolic church.

First, we hold to the faith first delivered by the apostles, the witnesses to Jesus.
Second, each according to our own traditions and ordering of our separate churches, we all serve under the apostolic commission, the command by which Jesus
Third, we each, together and separately, personally and corporately, are apostles for Christ – witnessing to God’s love, to Christ’s salvation, and to the power of the Holy Spirit in our daily lives.

Action:

Turn away from own another and pray outwards.

Response:

We believe in one, holy, catholic and apostolic church.

All May we be united:

one, holy, catholic and apostolic.

5) Conclusion

Commentary:

Every one of these marks of the church is necessary in our separate practice of faith and on those few occasions we come together:

That we assert our unity, our oneness in Christ, because were are visibly divided.
That we continually have to re-assert our holiness, our obedience to God, because were all fall short.
That at one and the same time our unity lies in the things we share – our one faith – and also in the things that are different and distinctive in our own traditions: united, holy, and all-embracing, catholic.

And these three – one, holy, catholic – run the risk of being seen in static terms, as though we could ever arrive at a point where we can say: that’s it, we’ve finished.

The fourth mark of the church – an Apostolic Church – reminds us that faith is not something we have: we participate in something dynamic, purposeful. Faith is a gift to us from God and from the generations of witnesses to God through the ages. Our apostolic task is to give our faith away to others.

Silent prayer

The reading reminds us that, without love, all our efforts are valueless,

Reading: 1 Corinthians 12:31b-13:7,13

The Nicene Creed

All We believe in one God,

the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth,

of all that is, seen and unseen.

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God,

eternally begotten of the Father,

God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God,

begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father;

through him all things were made.

For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven,

was incarnate from the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary

and was made man.

For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;

he suffered death and was buried.

On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures; he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.

He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,

and his kingdom will have no end.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,

who proceeds from the Father and the Son,

who with the Father and the Son is worshipped and glorified,

who has spoken through the prophets.

We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.

We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.

We look for the resurrection of the dead,

and the life of the world to come. Amen.

[Paul's Personal Pages] [Contact Us]