Dear Friends
I hope that you are all well. I am attaching the Canvey Church Prayers for others as well as the Service for Sunday 2nd August 2020. If you normally follow the YouTube links then you will notice that today's service is a little different
in that the whole service is on one link rather than many. This is because, for the Month of August, Pastor Steve Mayo, Rev Dr Calvin Samuel and myself have teamed up to create a series of services based on the book of the Acts of the Apostles. This Week, Pastor Steve Mayo is leading, I am offering the prayers, and Rev Dr Calvin Samuel is delivering the sermon. Next week, the mix will change and it will be my turn to present the sermon. Members from each of our churches will be taking the Bible readings and so you may see some faces that will be new to you.
I have asked Sue Sandling if she would kindly still produce our Canvey related prayer sheet and she has kindly agreed to do this. These local prayers will continue to be sent out each week alongside the service and will continue to guide our prayers during the week ahead.
For those who wish to follow by text alone, the service and prayers are attached. For those who wish to follow by YouTube link, these are as presented below:
Introduction:
Hymn: Bless The Lord O My Soul.
Canvey Church Prayers For Others:
Main Service Link:
God Bless
Colin
Sunday 2nd August 2020 - Acts 11: 1-18
Welcome
Good morning and welcome to this service for Sunday 2nd August 2020.
My name is Pastor Steve Mayo and I’m the Methodist minister for the churches of Hadleigh, Belfairs and Wesley in the Southend and Leigh Circuit in Essex.
Throughout August these YouTube services are going to be a combined effort between myself, Revd Dr Calvin Samuel and Pastor Colin Turner.
Colin is the minister at Canvey Methodist Church and Calvin at Rochford and Rayleigh Methodist churches. The reason for this joint effort is to enable some continuity over the month of August and we, working together, will be leading a different part of the service each week.
Our call to worship today is from Psalm 145 and will be read by Anna Wratislaw who is a member of Wesley Methodist Church.
Call to Worship: Psalm 145 – Anna Wratislaw
A psalm of praise. Of David.
1 I will exalt you, my God the King;
I will praise your name for ever and ever.
2 Every day I will praise you
and extol your name for ever and ever.
3 Great is the Lord and most worthy of praise;
his greatness no one can fathom.
4 One generation commends your works to another;
they tell of your mighty acts.
5 They speak of the glorious splendour of your majesty –
and I will meditate on your wonderful works.
6 They tell of the power of your awesome works –
and I will proclaim your great deeds.
7 They celebrate your abundant goodness
and joyfully sing of your righteousness.
8 The Lord is gracious and compassionate,
slow to anger and rich in love.
9 The Lord is good to all;
he has compassion on all he has made.
10 All your works praise you, Lord;
your faithful people extol you.
11 They tell of the glory of your kingdom
and speak of your might,
12 so that all people may know of your mighty acts
and the glorious splendour of your kingdom.
13 Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom,
and your dominion endures through all generations.
The Lord is trustworthy in all he promises
and faithful in all he does.
14 The Lord upholds all who fall
and lifts up all who are bowed down.
15 The eyes of all look to you,
and you give them their food at the proper time.
16 You open your hand
and satisfy the desires of every living thing.
17 The Lord is righteous in all his ways
and faithful in all he does.
18 The Lord is near to all who call on him,
to all who call on him in truth.
19 He fulfils the desires of those who fear him;
he hears their cry and saves them.
20 The Lord watches over all who love him,
but all the wicked he will destroy.
21 My mouth will speak in praise of the Lord.
Let every creature praise his holy name
for ever and ever. [NIV]
Opening Hymn: Praise my Soul the King of Heaven
Praise, my soul, the King of heaven;
to his feet thy tribute bring.
Ransomed, healed, restored, forgiven,
who like thee his praise should sing?
Praise him! Praise him!
Praise the everlasting King!
Praise him for his grace and favour
to his people in distress;
praise him, still the same forever,
slow to chide, and swift to bless.
Praise him! Praise him!
Glorious in his faithfulness.
Father-like, he tends and spares us;
well our feeble frame he knows;
in his hands he gently bears us,
rescues us from all our foes.
Praise him! Praise him!
Widely as his mercy flows.
Angels help us to adore him;
ye behold him face to face;
sun and moon, bow down before him,
dwellers all in time and space.
Praise him! Praise him!
Praise with us the God of grace!
[Henry Francis Lyte 1793–1847]
Prayers of Adoration, Praise, Confession and Lord’s Prayer – Pastor Colin Turner
A reflection of Psalm 145
Please join in the text marked in bold.
Let Us Pray.
Almighty and ever living God, we come together as your church today to worship you, to be in your presence and to lift up and exalt your Holy name. We see all around us the evidence of your creative greatness through the universe around us, of colour, energy, complexity, beauty, resurrection and movement of which we are all a part. Both its infinite grand scale and the unseen forces that bind it altogether in an intricate dance of microscopic and infinite unity, cause us to draw in our breath in awe and wonder and to join in with the psalmist in declaring, “Great is the Lord and most worthy of praise. His greatness, no one can fathom”.
Indeed, Lord God, this galaxy spinning, breath breathing creation, speaks mightily and eloquently of your glorious splendour, of your singular majesty, of your great deeds and in Jesus Christ, of your kind compassion, abundant goodness, joyful righteousness and richness in love. We praise and thank you for your kindness and generosity, for your sustaining, faithful and upholding, father like love; For lifting us up when we fail and fall, and for granting us forgiveness and cleansing through the atoning sacrifice of Jesus your son upon the cross.
In these quiet moments Lord, we respond to the searching gaze of your Holy Spirit as He moves upon our exposed hearts, and, in love, marks out the sins for which Christ “died and shed his precious life-giving blood” to purchase our forgiveness and cleansing.
(A moment of silent reflection)
Lord God of Compassion and boundless blessings, we are full of grateful amazement that you care so greatly for the needs of your children.
In confidence therefore we can gratefully declare that,
“Forgiven by you, we can start anew”. We worship and adore you for your generosity, your love and your power. In the Name of Jesus we pray. Amen
The Lord's Prayer:
Our Father, who are in heaven
hallowed be thy Name,
thy kingdom come,
thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those
who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
and the power, and the glory,
for ever and ever.
Amen.
Our scripture reading today is from Acts 11:1-18 and will be read by Kathy Turner who is a member of Canvey Methodist Church.
Scripture Reading: Acts 11:1-18 – Kathy Turner
Peter’s Report to the Church at Jerusalem
11 Now the apostles and the believers who were in Judea heard that the Gentiles had also accepted the word of God. 2 So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcised believers criticized him, 3 saying, “Why did you go to uncircumcised men and eat with them?” 4 Then Peter began to explain it to them, step by step, saying, 5 “I was in the city of Joppa praying, and in a trance I saw a vision. There was something like a large sheet coming down from heaven, being lowered by its four corners; and it came close to me. 6 As I looked at it closely I saw four-footed animals, beasts of prey, reptiles, and birds of the air. 7 I also heard a voice saying to me, ‘Get up, Peter; kill and eat.’ 8 But I replied, ‘By no means, Lord; for nothing profane or unclean has ever entered my mouth.’ 9 But a second time the voice answered from heaven, ‘What God has made clean, you must not call profane.’ 10 This happened three times; then everything was pulled up again to heaven. 11 At that very moment three men, sent to me from Caesarea, arrived at the house where we were. 12 The Spirit told me to go with them and not to make a distinction between them and us. These six brothers also accompanied me, and we entered the man’s house. 13 He told us how he had seen the angel standing in his house and saying, ‘Send to Joppa and bring Simon, who is called Peter; 14 he will give you a message by which you and your entire household will be saved.’ 15 And as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them just as it had upon us at the beginning. 16 And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said, ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ 17 If then God gave them the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?” 18 When they heard this, they were silenced. And they praised God, saying, “Then God has given even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life.” [NRSV]
Sermon – Revd. Dr Calvin Samuel
COVENANT COMMUNITY ONLINE SERVICE
PRESENTER: Pastor Steve Mayo
PREACHER: The Revd Dr Calvin T Samuel
SUNDAY 02nd August 2020: Overcoming Gentile Prejudice
Acts Chapter 11 begins with this exceptional piece of news: ‘Now the apostles and the believers who were in Judea heard that the Gentiles had also accepted the word of God.’ This is big news. Christianity in its early days was simply another sect within Judaism: some Jews were Pharisees, some Sadducees, some Essenes, and some were Followers of the Way.
So when the Jerusalem Church heard that Gentiles had also become Followers of the Way, what was their reaction? The church criticized him, saying, “Why did you go to the uncircumcised and eat with them?”
To eat with someone implied you shared a certain solidarity with them. It’s the reason that Pharisees were so perplexed when Jesus ate with tax collectors and sinners, it’s why the crowd grumbled when Jesus planned to eat with Zaccheus in Luke 19, it’s why Paul tells the Corinthian Church in 1 Cor 5.11 not to eat with those who bear the name of sister or brother but whose lives tell a different story.
In addition, eating with Gentiles raised additional questions: Can you eat with Gentiles and observe the requirements of the Law? Peter’s eating with Gentiles broke a number of cultural and religious taboos of his day.
Peter’s response did not challenge the prejudice of the Jerusalem Christians. Indeed, Peter, we know, did not always avoid his own prejudice. We’re told in Galatians 2.11 that Paul rebuked Peter to his face, because he was prepared to eat with Gentile Christians when Jewish Christians weren’t around, but when they came to Galatia, he withdrew from eating with Gentiles.
And not just Peter, others followed his example, including Barnabas, who with Paul was a key leader of the Gentile Christian mission. Isn’t it a crazy situation when Peter and Barnabas, the very people who led Gentiles to Christ, couldn’t always be counted upon to overcome their own prejudices?
Friends, it’s an unfortunate truth that our Christian faith sometimes, and all too often, leaves our prejudices untouched, especially when we either don’t know those prejudices are there, or when we don’t recognise the clash between our Christian values and our internalised prejudices.
Let’s be clear: as much as we might like it to be true, prejudice isn’t something that other people do. It’s something we’re all capable of doing, in one form or other, whether racism, sexism, homophobia, or xenophobia. The good news is this. Prejudice is a human and social construct. Therefore, it can be deconstructed, by the very same people who constructed it, us.
So how did the early church begin to deconstruct their prejudice?
First, See the problem in yourself. As Peter’s story begins with a dream of a sheet lowered from heaven with all kinds of animals which Jews view as unclean. Peter is invited to eat but he says, ‘No. Nothing profane or unclean has ever entered my mouth.’ To which the voice rebukes him: ‘What God has made clean you must not call profane.’ This happened three times. Peter was beginning to see the problem in himself.
Seeing the problem in ourselves is a really difficult thing to do. We see problems in others far more easily than in ourselves. However, if we’re going to address issues of prejudice, we need to begin to see something of the problem in ourselves. By the way, Peter didn’t see the whole problem. Sometimes, it takes a long time to see ourselves, but if we begin to see something of ourselves, we might be in a position to be moved on by God.
Second, Recognise something of God in the other. As Cornelius told his story, of an Angel appearing to him and instructing him to send to Joppa for Peter, it became evident that there was something of God in Cornelius. So, Peter preached to him the gospel and as he was doing so the Holy Spirit fell on them and they spoke in other tongues like the apostles themselves had done in the upper room at Pentecost.
By the way, this is the only other time in Acts we are told that a group of believers spoke in tongues when they came to faith. God had not offered these Gentile believers in any way a lesser experience. Therefore, Peter ordered that they be baptised them with water, and in so doing admitted them into full fellowship in the Church. In that moment, the Church recognised something of God in the other.
Third, they had some uncomfortable and long overdue conversations. Why did you eat with the uncircumcised? Paul’s challenge to Peter in Galatians 2 was the opposite question. Why did you stop eating with the uncircumcised as soon as a bunch of Jews turned up? Acts 15 is all about how Gentile Christians are meant to interact with the Jewish law. These conversations were hard, but they had them and wrestled with the issues.
In Britain there is a long overdue conversation about race and systemic racism that we’re simply not having. The Black Lives Matter protests which have springing up across the globe occur on the periphery of the Church, which means that within the Church there are conversations we’ve not yet figured out how to have. Until we find ways of overcoming our natural British reserve to have those conversations our prejudices will remain in place, both unchallenged and unchanged. It’s not a conversation for the faint hearted. It’s a conversation in which a lot of listening needs to be undertaken. And there are no quick fixes. But it has to be done.
Fourth, as a result of those conversations, of seeing something of God in the other, of beginning to see the problem in themselves they revised their perspectives. No longer did they see Gentiles as the uncircumcised. They instead praised God for them. They didn’t suddenly forget they were Gentiles, of course not, but their perspective on Gentile Christians changed, and their perspective on God also changed.
Prejudice shrinks our horizons and limits our field of vision. Overcoming prejudice is, therefore, not simply something we do for the benefit of others, it’s also something we do for ourselves.
Friends, we find ourselves at a significant moment in the life of the Church and of the world. The death of George Floyd and the reach of the pandemic has exposed a level of systemic injustice and racial prejudice that needs to be addressed. We in the Church have a distinctive contribution to make to that national debate.
This story in Acts is a reminder that facing our own prejudices and challenging them in others, is something for which we need the Spirit’s power to change hearts and minds. So, let us pray for God’s wisdom, courage and grace to follow in the footsteps of our forebears in doing our part in the deconstruction of the human and social constructs of prejudice which remain in ourselves, our churches and society. Amen.
Before we have our intercessory prayers, we are going to sing our 2nd hymn, the words were written way back in the 1800’s by Charitie L. Bancroft (1841-92), but set to a newer tune by Vikki Cook; Lord, I before your throne of grace.
Hymn: Lord, I come before your throne of grace
LORD, I COME BEFORE YOUR THRONE OF GRACE;
I find rest in Your presence
And fulness of joy.
In worship and wonder
I behold Your face,
Singing what a faithful God have I.
What a faithful God have I,
What a faithful God.
What a faithful God have I,
Faithful in every way.
Lord of mercy, You have heard my cry;
Through the storm You’re the beacon,
My song in the night.
In the shelter of Your wings,
Hear my heart’s reply,
Singing what a faithful God have I.
Lord all sovereign, granting peace from heaven,
Let me comfort those who suffer
With the comfort You have given.
I will tell of Your great love for as long as I live,
Singing what a faithful God have I.
[Robert & Dawn Critchley]
Prayers for Others – Pastor Colin Turner
Almighty Loving God. We come as your people before you now to bring our prayers for others. We thank you and praise you for your promise that nothing can separate us from your great and powerful love, and that if you are for us then who can be against us!
And, so, we thank you so much for everything you have blessed us with this past week and we thank you for another beautiful day of life.
We think of our church family and for all who are gathering to Worship you today, both physically and virtually. We know that through your Holy Spirit we are joined in fellowship with one another as we bring our collective worship, praise and prayers to you. We pray for everyone across the Southend and Leigh Methodist Church Circuit and pray that you will bless each person gathered. May each of us have a special sense of your presence with us. We pray especially for those who are lonely or not feeling too good today. We ask for you to fill them with your peace and grace.
We lift before you, those in our society, who have little or nothing; for those who feel trapped in their situation and who cannot see even a tiny glimmer of light. May they know the help of friends and family and the assurance of your presence with them.
We pray for the people who are hungry, for parents who may be struggling to feed their children, and themselves. May they find help and provision in their need.
We thank you for the work of food banks and for the Circuit Experience project and pray for all those who sacrificially give of their time and energies in organising and in supporting these endeavours.
We pray for our world and for the many places that need your healing touch of blessing and salvation. God of all creation, you hold the world and the depths of the earth in your hands. We pray for places where people are gripped by famine, by war and by disease. We pray for governments as they grapple with social unrest caused by fear, by panic and by desperation of those whose jobs have gone and whose resources are exhausted. Please open the hearts of leaders to be compassionate, generous and wise in their responses to the urgent needs of their populations. We pray that international resources will be made available to help the sick, the poor and the dispossessed.
We think of our own country, as it emerges from lockdown as restrictions are lifted.
Grant wisdom, insight and stamina to government, local authority, business leaders and to employees as doors are opened and commercial and social life resumes.
We lift before you all NHS and Key workers and ask that you protect and care for them in their daily work. We also pray for hospital chaplains who are working with people when they are at their most vulnerable. We would ask that you be in their every conversation and alongside them in every situation encountered please? We pray for all the medical researchers and ask that you will lead them to a vaccine that can be produced quickly and which will see an end to Covid-19 and it’s life threatening potency.
For the many who have lost loved ones to Coronavirus, Lord, we lift them before you now. For the many who are mourning we pray. Please Lord, comfort them in their bitter grief, which can be too hard to bear. We ask you to be their Yahweh Shalom, their peace.
Now Lord, may you bless each and every one of us today and in the week ahead, and may Jesus touch our lives in a very special way as we live and serve you.
Thank you for hearing all these prayers. We bring these prayers to you in the great, victorious and powerful name of the Lord Jesus Christ, our Saviour. AMEN
Closing Hymn:
Our final hymn for this service is a fairly new one written in 2005 by Stuart Townend & Keith Getty, ‘O Church Arise and put Your Armour on.’
O CHURCH, ARISE and put your armour on;
Hear the call of Christ our Captain.
For now the weak can say that they are strong
In the strength that God has given.
With shield of faith and belt of truth,
We’ll stand against the devil’s lies;
An army bold, whose battle-cry is Love,
Reaching out to those in darkness.
Our call to war, to love the captive soul
But to rage against the captor;
And with the sword that makes the wounded whole,
We will fight with faith and valour.
When faced with trials on every side
We know the outcome is secure,
And Christ will have the prize for which He died,
An inheritance of nations.
Come see the cross, where love and mercy meet,
As the Son of God is stricken;
Then see His foes lie crushed beneath His feet,
For the Conqueror has risen!
And as the stone is rolled away,
And Christ emerges from the grave,
This victory march continues till the day
Every eye and heart shall see Him.
So Spirit, come, put strength in every stride,
Give grace for every hurdle,
That we may run with faith to win the prize
Of a servant good and faithful.
As saints of old still line the way,
Retelling triumphs of His grace,
We hear their calls, and hunger for the day
When with Christ we stand in glory.
[Stuart Townend & Keith Getty]
Thank you for joining us for this service. We do hope that you have found this service helpful.
Now a final benediction.
Benediction
The peace of God, which passes all understanding,
Keep our hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of Jesus Christ
our Lord;
And the blessing of God Almighty,
The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit,
Be upon us and remain with us always. AMEN.
(based upon Philippians 4:7)
CCL No. 250079