Continuing our series on friendship, Jen reflects on Jesus’ inclusive and mutually supportive friendships with women and asks how we can use the power and privilege we have to invite others into community. The reading is Luke 8 v1-3. You can listen here or using the player below.
Jesus spent time with all the ‘wrong’ people, those who didn’t live up to the standards expected of them, taking their shame and disappointment, and the judgement of others onto himself. He continues to offer friendship, welcome and compassion to all, especially those of us who have ‘missed the mark’ (a literal translation of the word used for ‘sinners’). The reading is Luke 7v36-50. Ben offers a particular encouragement to the younger generation who are measured and tested so much – you are loved just as you are. You can listen here or using the player below.
Continuing our series on friendship, Ben reflects on Jesus’ friendship with Mary, Martha and Lazarus which is recorded in John’s gospel chapters 11 and 12. Friendship with Jesus is transformative. We can learn from the way relationships were formed in this group: paying attention to one another, offering hospitality and unhurried presence, and allowing others to help us. You can listen here or using the player below.
As we move towards the end of Lent we get closer to Easter and walk with Jesus through the last few days of his life as he journeyed to the cross and then the empty grave.
Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. Hebrews 12: 2+3
This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. 1 John 3:16
True and humble king,
hailed by the crowd as Messiah:
grant us the faith to know you and love you,
that we may be found beside you
on the way of the cross,
which is the path of glory.
Alternative Collect for Palm Sunday and Holy Week.
Ponder: Take some time this week to reflect on your journey through Lent.
You might like to read Psalm 139 again. What has god been showing you as you reflect and invite God to examine your life?
What have you tried this Lent, have any practices stuck?
Have you formed any habits?
What are you most grateful for right now, and what are you least grateful for? What can you learn from these things?
Is there anything from this journey you want to take with you past Easter and into the summer?
Celebrate
We’ve got lots going on in Holy Week (the next few days from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday). Come and join in as we celebrate and mark this week.
On Palm Sunday we’ll be worshipping at 9am Communion and 11am Central Gathering.
There will be prayer stations to help you creatively engage with the Easter story set up in the Kairos room. The room will be open Tuesday and Wednesday 10-4pm.
On Tuesday there will be Easter Family Fun for all ages from 10-11:30am in the Hall
On Wednesday there’ll be prayer for justice, and especially IJM, in the Kairos room at 7:30pm.
Join in 24 hours of prayer from Maundy Thursday. Sign up for an hour or more at: bit.ly/kairosprayerroom. There’ll be a simple communion service at 6pm on Maundy Thursday in this room.
On Good Friday we will gather, with Christians across the town, for an outdoor service on Good Friday, 11am at the War Memorial.
There will also be an hours reflective service in the Kairos Room at 3pm.
On Easter Sunday we’ll celebrate with others in Kairos at 10am.
I’d love to invite you to join with us at these things as we pray, worship and celebrate together.
I’d also like to encourage you to consider who you could invite to come with you.
I have friends who aren’t yet Christians and can spot people of peace.
We are not called to keep ourselves to ourselves or to stay within our own little bubbles. Just like his followers in the New Testament, Jesus sends us out into our everyday lives.
It can be very easy to either stick with groups who think or act just like us, or to adapt our ways of speaking and thinking to match the people we spend life with. Jesus sends us out with a greeting of peace: we can make friends with people around us, and we have something distinctive to offer – our relationship with Him!
As we get to know a wider range of people we find that our own experience and understanding grows. We’ll be better able to practice curiosity and empathy, we’ll be less at risk of isolating ourselves and can learn how others make sense of and understand the world.
We’ll also start to spot people of peace – those people in whom God is already at work, who God is drawing to Godself. These people get to take a step closer to Jesus because they happen to know you!
Whatever house you enter, begin by saying, ‘Peace to this house.’ Luke 10: 5
Lord I give my relationships to you.
Show me how to build friendships with people different to me,
train me to use empathy and curiosity to build links
so that I might learn from others,
and help them come closer to you.
Amen.
Ponder
Where do you get to spend time with people who are different to you?
More specifically where do you get to be with people who don’t share your faith?
How easy do you find it to be yourself in those places?
Do you ever find yourself getting nervous or defensive, or overly judgemental and offensive? How might you become someone who can offer peace?
Think about your friendships, who might God already be working in, drawing them to Godself?
Are there people who might be interested in an invitation to a coffee, to try out a Kairos Community or Gathering, or just to spend a bit more time with you?
Try This
Perhaps you have lots of friends who aren’t yet Christians, spend some time praying for them. Ask God to Awaken them to his love, bless them, Increase their curiosity and draw them want to explore more.
Ask God to show you if there are people in your life who are already curious or interested in faith. Pray for that person each day and ask God to show you how to encourage them as they explore.
Perhaps you don’t have many friends but you do already have a place where you get to meet people who don’t think or act or live as you do? Think of a way you could invest in friendships in that place. That could be deliberately staying there longer, finding the social spots in that area, or trying to get to know one person there better.
Perhaps you find it hard to identify places where you get to mix with people. Ask God to show you how to do that, think about places you do go that you know others will also inhabit. Talk through your thoughts with another Kairos person, or with your Kairos Community.
When you meet with others from Kairos, include some time to name and pray for people you each think might be ‘people of peace.’
I am in a Kairos Community the grows my faith.
This week in our Lent Examen journey our focus is Community. As someone created in God’s image you are created for relationships. God is love, so you are made to love and to be loved. Our call as a church focusses on three things, loving God, building community and sharing Jesus.
Community is built by developing relationships and Kairos Communities build relationships around a particular mission purpose. You might be a leader of one of these communities, you might be an active participant – part of that groups core, you may be more on the fringe of one or two communities: getting a feel for them, trying them out. These smaller communities have a life span and change and grow, that means some of us may not be in a community right now, or might never have found a place that fits.
Wherever we are in terms of Kairos Community, we can all invest and develop relationships within Kairos. We can all get to know someone, or invite them into our life. We can all invest in others.
The thing is: many of us probably think other people are better connected, with healthier relationships, than we are. And many of us may feel lonely or isolated from time to time. Love is proactive! How might you take initiative and invest in relationships with one, two or three others?
One thing I love that some of our communities are currently doing is breaking down into smaller groups of 2 or 3 for regular prayer or accountability. Are there a couple of other people you could meet with regularly as you encourage each other to follow Jesus?
Let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another.
Hebrews 10: 24 – 25
Ponder
Who are the people in Kairos that make you most grateful?
What does community look like for you right now?
Can you think of ways in which other people are helping you grow your faith?
How are you helping others grow theirs?
Read a story or two about Jesus’ meals with friends
(try Luke 10:38-42, John 12: 1-8 or Matthew 26: 17 – 30).
Ask God to show you something new about Jesus’ community.
Is there anyone you might like to get to know better or build relationship with?
Are there ways you could invest in others or help welcome them?
Try This
Visit a Community, try out one or two of their activities.
Have a conversation with someone in your community about how you might grow or develop your shared life together.
Invite someone from Kairos for a coffee, food, or a conversation. Learn about their life.
Ask one or two other people to meet with you and pray together.
Continue a ‘try this’ practice you found helpful last week.
I encounter God’s presence in prayer and worship
You are created in God’s image to know relationship with God. All people are. In Genesis we see how God would walk with humans in the cool of the day. You are amazing, and you are lacking, you need God’s presence. Prayer and worship are ways in which we may draw near to God. Very simply they are the ways we have conversation with God and live to give Him glory.
In one sense the whole of life is prayer and worship – we can talk to God at all times and everything we do we are invited to do as worship for God. In another sense we do particular things at particular times to help us connect, find ourselves at home with God, be especially close.
God is present with us. We may not always feel this, we may not always have (or want) an ecstatic experience but God is present. Jesus says ‘I am with you always’ and we are invited to be ‘rooted and established’ in his love.
‘For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.’ Ephesians 3:14-19
Lord God, as I journey through lent, help me draw near to you.
Ponder
What does prayer and worship look like for you at this time?
Do you have set times in your day and week where you pray and worship alone? With others?
What words or phrases stand out to you from the Ephesians passage? What might God be saying to you today?
How are you rooted and established? Where might rootedness need to grow in your life?
Try This
Download and use the Lectio 365 and/or Inner Room apps from 24-7 Prayer and use them to build your own rhythm of prayer.
www.24-7prayer.com/join_in_posts/pray-using-apps/
Try taking 10 minutes in silence, or out in nature, or just talking to God. How does it feel?
Read a Psalm and use it to inspire you, start to write or sing your praise.
Come to a Kairos Community worship event or gathering you wouldn’t normally attend. See how you experience God in that space.
Sign up for the Harrogate House of Prayer emails and make some time to pray through the email.
www.netmakers.org.uk/pray
Choose a friend to pray for each day over the next few weeks.
Find two or three people to pray with each week for the next few weeks.
Try praying out loud, either on your own or with others. Get used to hearing yourself talk to God.
There is a tension at the heart of Lent that helps us on our spiritual journey.
On the one hand we start with Ash Wednesday. We might mark ourselves with a cross and we ask God to forgive us. We accept that we are broken, fallen and in need of rescuing. Then we begin to journey towards Easter, that great and terrifying moment where we see just what Jesus would do to rescue us, and we celebrate his defeat of death. On the one hand Lent has nothing to do with us and is all about God’s work.
On the other hand we might give something up, or make plans for reading or courses or prayer. We might use the next 40 days to build in a habit or try something to help us take a step closer to God. So there is a tension, which is in fact the perfect tension of following Jesus. We can’t do any of this, we’re utterly reliant on Jesus. Yet Jesus calls us. Lent becomes a time where we pay attention to our journey – how are we learning to follow him?
We remember Jesus fasting in the desert and we attempt to walk more closely. Fasting is a great way to explore this tension. We give up something we love or need – screens, chocolate, meal(s), alcohol, because we want to make space in our lives to draw closer to God. We identify with Jesus as he fasted in the desert and received the Holy Spirit’s power. At the same time by giving things up we remind ourselves of our dependencies and appetites, we remember how weak we are.
Story
“I fast when I feel I need clarity from God. The process calms the storm within me from the voices that create uncertainty, confusion, and doubt. This might be for myself or when someone else is needing guidance or healing. Clarity comes as I replace what I am fasting from with prayer and reading my bible. The result of fasting for me is always a renewed sense of well-being, hope, purpose and direction.” Mandy
Is there something you might fast from this Lent?
God, investigate my life;
get all the facts firsthand.
I’m an open book to you; Psalm 139:1 (MSG)
Jesus, teach me to occasionally live with less,
to fast those things which distract me
or in which I am tempted to put my trust.
I know that you have the best for me
and are leading me in the way of everlasting abundant life.
Amen. Engage Worship
Ponder
How does your life demonstrate that you follow Jesus?
How does your life demonstrate that you need Jesus’ help?
How might fasting feature in your Lent this year?
Read Psalm 139 and ask God to investigate you.
Try this
Take a moment to read our journey statements again.
Are there any you feel you have taken steps forward with this year?
Are there any you feel you want to do something about?
“Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.” Matthew 13:8
This Lent I sense a call to dig deeper. Back in October we started to imagine what it would look like for God’s word to spread and flourish around us as a church. Since the New Year we have been asking God to teach us to pray. We have made some good steps forward and, amidst all the uncertainty and unease that is around us, it is time to dig in: to ask that we, and the people and places God has put us, would be like good soil bearing a good crop.
How might God be inviting you to dig deeper over the next 40 days?
Dig deeper into the bible. Find some time each day to read a short passage of scripture. Let it read and challenge you. Ask God to show you something from what you are reading each day.
There are lots of great bible plans and notes out there. I plan to use Lectio 365 and LICC’s Simple Rule journey this Lent. If you arene’t sure what else to use why not join me with one of those plans?
Dig deeper in prayer. Build more space for prayer on your own and with others.
Pray indoors and outside. Pray that God’s word would find good soil. There are lots of ways to pray. If you are not sure where to start you could try this:
Sit with God in silence for 5-10 minutes, perhaps repeat a phrase from the bible or short prayer to yourself in this time: eg. ‘May I be good soil’. After a short while say the phrases of the Lord’s Prayer. Pause over at least one phrase and use it to add your own prayers.
Dig deeper into fasting. Fasting is giving up something that we enjoy or sustains us in order to focus on God. It creates a bit of weakness in our lives and is a way of allowing God’s presence to meet us.
What might God be calling you to give up regularly over the next few weeks? How might you join with others in fasting as well as prayer?
Dig deeper and share. Good soil produces a crop, more seed to sow. How could you share what God is showing you or doing in you with others, both Christians and people who wouldn’t yet describe themselves as followers of Jesus?
Don’t try and dig deeper in all these areas all the time. Rather ask “What’s next Lord?” and ask Jesus to show you where to dig deeper this Lent.
There’s a verse in John 15 where Jesus says “Greater love has no-one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” (verse 13)
The Message translation puts it like this:
“This is my command: Love one another the way I loved you. This is the very best way to love. Put your life on the line for your friends.”
Jesus’ act of submission to the cross is the greatest act of generosity the world has even seen. He literally laid down His life for us, his friends. Jesus gave everything He had to make things right again between us and the Father. An amazing, selfless act of giving.
And He commands us to give in the same ways!
If you look through the Bible you can find lots of passages which urge us to be generous in giving our money, our time and our effort. It’s not hard to find a verse which teaches us the different ways we are to love others. But like so many things in the Bible, it’s not understanding what God says which is difficult but the doing it that’s really hard!!
Giving something of ourselves to someone else, laying down our lives, is a sacrifice and a discipline. We don’t usually find ourselves giving by accident! Sometimes we find it easy to do something generous for someone else, for me it’s easier if it’s someone I’m good friends with or if it actually won’t take that much effort. But we’re to practice laying down our lives even when we don’t find it easy and it’s not convenient. Giving of our money, time and effort is an investment into the kind of culture we want in our communities, church and in the world. Jesus also teaches us that we reap what we sow. If we as leaders are not prepared to take on the discipline of generosity towards others then we won’t grow a culture of it within our MSCs either. We also won’t experience the richest of blessings that God has in store for us as we give.
Personally God has taught Ben and I so much about trusting Him with money – but it started with a risk we took to be generous. We couldn’t have learnt how to be secure in trusting Him with money if we hadn’t taken a risk first. And the risk was really to believe that what He says about Himself is true – He is a good Father and can be completely trusted to take care of us.
There are other risks he could be asking us to take as we think about where we need to be generous in terms of money, time and effort. What kind of risk is He asking you to take as you learn to love and lay down your life for others at the moment?
—
Helen Askew
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