Welcome to this weeks Virtual Service, brought to you by Rev David Burt.

Sunday 19th April 2020

HYMN

🎶 Jesus Christ is Risen Today

BIBLE READING

📖 John Chapter 20 Verses 19 – 31

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PRAYER

Eternal God,
in this post-Easter season,
which is springtime in some parts
of the world, and autumn in others,
we pray for those who are at a time
of new beginnings in their lives,
and those approaching an end.

For some, the Easter message will be easy
to embrace, if they are celebrating a birth,
a recovery from illness, an escape from danger,
or the opening up of unexpected new opportunities.
There will be others who are still in the agony
of Good Friday, or the empty silence of Saturday,
because a loved one has died and will not
be returning this side of eternity.

If our faith is to be real, loving God, it has to be
for the dark days as well as the bright ones.
As those who represent the risen Christ
in our world today, we pray that we may be
rigorous in our thinking, honest in our speaking,
genuine in our testimony to what we believe
and the difference that makes to the whole of life.
May we hold together our doubting and believing,
valuing both for the gifts that they are.

We pray for those who have been let down
by the church, through a betrayal of trust,
or a failure in honesty.
They have been told that in order
to take part in the adventure of faith,
‘all they have to do’ is believe –
but faith, like love, cannot be commanded.
It can only be lived,
can only be tested by experience.
We pray for all who are searching for faith,
and those who think they have found it;
that they may respectively be reassured,
and shaken out of complacency.

For those who have been let down in the past,
that they may take the risk of trusting again,
and find that you are worthy of our trust.
For those who are grieving,
may they find comfort in our Easter faith,
and companions in those of us who, like Thomas,
struggle sometimes to believe what other people
think we should, but who have dared to believe
in the indestructible power of love,
and have found that embodied in Christ,
who lived, and died, and rose again,
and who is here with us now.
Amen

HYMN

🎶 Thine be the Glory