Lismore Regional Uniting Church
Including the worshipping communities of Bexhill, Coraki, Jiggi, Kyogle, and Lismore
PreachFest is a 3-day festival created to inspire and enliven the craft, art and vocation of preaching across churches in Australia.
from: 01/06/2021 9:00 am to: 03/06/2021 8:30 pm. Sydney and Canberra plus online via streaming. For more details click on the link below
https://ume.nswact.uca.org.au/calendar/preachfest-2021/
An interesting read from the UCA’s Insights magazine about Pentecost and what it means for us today.
Lord, I have never travelled this way before.
I don’t recognise this track at all.
Road signs are twisted and unreadable.
I have no idea where it is leading.
Please shine some light on my path and if that is not possible just now, please hold my hand in the dark.
Lord, my friends have never travelled this way before.
They are stumbling along just as I am.
They ask a neighbour for directions, but
‘Sorry, I am a stranger here myself’, they say.
Please hold my friends and this community in your safe embrace, even when I cannot offer a hug.
Lord, our church leaders have never travelled this way before.
There is no simple roadmap, no precedent to follow.
They long to give reassurance and a word from you
But the familiar ways of connecting are being taken away each day.
Please give our church leaders hearts of love, spirits of grace and minds of deep wisdom.
Lord, our national leaders and decision makers have never travelled this way before.
Crushing responsibilities have suddenly landed on them without warning.
Everywhere they turn they are faced with another crisis, another catastrophe.
They are isolated from international support as every nation is struggling.
Please give all those in authority the wisdom to listen to the very best advice and to act responsibly for the wellbeing of this whole besieged nation.
Lord, as we all blunder along in uncertainty and anxiety,
We give thanks for beautiful autumn weather, for clean air, for water in our taps, a roof over our head, the benefits of electricity, telephones and the internet, for food on our table.
We give thanks for time to read, and listen to music, and create craft and quilts and books and photography, and to make art.
Speak to our hearts in this strangest Lenten period we have ever lived.
Amen
Margaret Reeson
2020
There is so much in our society that tells us we are not good enough, smart enough, rich enough, etc. Henri Nouwen, a priest-psychologist from Holland, goes so far as to suggest that this is the single most debilitating aspect of many of our lives.
An interesting article written by Fr Henri Nouwen from the Propel Women site.
Anchoring Ourselves as God’s Beloved: Spiritual Reading with Henri Nouwen
As previously advised, Sunday 2nd February will see the election for new Church Councillors and Elders, following the services at Lismore UCA and Jarman churches. This is to bring more people onboard to cope with the demands of the church at this time. Please stay after the services and ensure you cast your vote. Sunday 9th February will see the Commissioning of all church leaders (including those new Councillors and Elders) for 2020.
Please keep all our church leaders in your prayers.
Lord, please help our church leaders to be steadfast in Your work. Help them to know that their toil is not in vain. May they not be distracted, discouraged or doubtful and thus neglect the spiritual gift You have given them. Give them the tenacity to take great pains to maintain the path You have cleared for them and to be committed to the work You have laid before them. Lord protect their sense of confidence in You. Grace them to not misplace any confidence in the flesh (their own accomplishments or the abilities of other people). Direct them to draw near to Your throne of grace with confidence for their every need.
Lord, I pray that You would send a spirit of encouragement to them so that they might walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which they have been called; lead them to walk with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing tolerance for those around them in love, and that they would be diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. Lord of peace, equip our leaders in every good thing to do Your will, working in our church that which is pleasing in Your sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.
On Sunday 9th February, 2020, Lismore Regional Mission will be holding a Commissioning Service within the normal Sunday morning worship at Lismore Uniting at the 8.30 am service.
This service will see the Church Councillors and Elders and others commissioned in the service of our Lord in Lismore Regional Mission, to provide leadership and service to the seven congregations that make up the mission.
It would be great if as many people could be present at this service to be part of this special celebration.
Gracious God. ‘The Disaster Recovery Chaplain’s Prayer’, by Rev Stephen Robinson, National Disaster Recovery Officer of the Uniting Church in Australia |
| Prayer for this Land Australia
Creator God, Jesus our brother, give us your grace, We ask you God the Holy Spirit, Amen
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Prayer for a Journey of Healing
We who have come from every land give thanks for Australia; We stand together, united as one people proud of our ability Yet we turn to the original owners of our land, and see, too, We have shadows in our history which if unfaced diminish us. Let us look back with courage; see the truth and speak it. Give us courage to face the truth; compassion to share the With courage, compassion, strength and hope, we will walk |
| © 2012 Bishop Saibo Mabo Chairperson NATSIEC | Prayer Dedicated to Uncle Ted Field, WA Reconciliation Inter-Faith Working Group |
| A Daily Meditation by Richard Rohr * |
From the Center for Action and Contemplation  |
| The Peasant’s Alphabet from Richard Rohr |
| Abba Poemen (340–450) taught that the right question in all circumstances was “Who am I?” [1] St. Francis of Assisi (1182–1226) would spend whole nights praying “Who are you, my most dear God, and who am I . . . ?” [2] It is through encountering the absolute safety of God that we discover our True Self, and in finding our truest self, we find a God who is always and forever larger than we expected. The truth of our identity, wrapped up in God, gives us a deep sense of radical okayness and yet humility about our fragility. What a paradox! Read these sayings and let them stir deeper questions and reflection. This is the power of these simple stories. One day Abba Arsenius consulted an old Egyptian monk about his own thoughts. Someone noticed this and said to him, “Abba Arsenius, how is it that you with such a good Latin and Greek education, ask this peasant about your thoughts?” He replied, “I have indeed been taught Latin and Greek, but I do not know even the alphabet of this peasant.” [3] Abba Anthony said, “A time is coming when men will go mad, and when they see someone who is not mad, they will attack him saying, ‘You are mad, you are not like us.’” [4] Abba Isaiah, when someone asked him what avarice was, replied, “Not to believe that God cares for you, to despair of the promises of God and to love boasting.” [5] I hope this brief introduction to the Desert Fathers and Mothers has given you at least a taste of why their simple spirituality is so valuable for us today. If you are drawn to read more of their sayings, don’t be surprised if you are quickly offended by some of their seeming lower-stage thinking. Stay with them, in honesty and humility, and I’m sure they will teach you something of your own human nature and God’s benevolence. In their irrelevance to our world, these abbas and ammas end up being amazingly relevant, precisely because their frame of reference is so utterly different than ours. We all need radically different frames to recognize our own limitations. The practice of contemplation took root in these mystics under extreme circumstances—in the desert wilderness and at the height of the Roman Empire. Looking for God, first in cities and then far away from mainstream culture, they ultimately found God’s presence within themselves, once they got still enough to recognize it. For all their idiosyncratic teachings and practices, the desert mystics provide a common thread of love running through their stories. In the words of our own beloved teacher James Finley: In the freedom with which you freely choose to give yourself in love to the love that gives itself to you, in that reciprocity of love, your destiny is fulfilled, and God’s will for you is consummated. That all of life when you distill it out to its simplest terms, it has to do in the intimate always utterly personal way that each of us serendipitously stumbles upon this great truth. When everything is said and done, only love is real, only love endures. Outside of love, there is nothing, nothing at all. [6] Contemplation helps us reconnect with our source, which is love, and compels us to embody love in our actions. |
| Gateway to Action & Contemplation: What word or phrase resonates with or challenges me? What sensations do I notice in my body? What is mine to do? Prayer for Our Community: O Great Love, thank you for living and loving in us and through us. May all that we do flow from our deep connection with you and all beings. Help us become a community that vulnerably shares each other’s burdens and the weight of glory. Listen to our hearts’ longings for the healing of our world. [Please add your own intentions.] . . . Knowing you are hearing us better than we are speaking, we offer these prayers in all the holy names of God, amen. [1] The Sayings of the Desert Fathers: The Alphabetical Collection, trans. Benedicta Ward, rev. ed. (Cistercian Publications: 1984, ©1975), 102. [2] “The Deeds of Blessed Francis and His Companions,” IX.37. See Francis of Assisi: Early Documents, vol. 3 (New City Press: 2001), 455. [3] Sayings, Ward, 10. [4] Ibid., 6. [5] Ibid., 70 [6] James Finley, Intimacy: The Divine Ambush, disc 1981 CE. |
Lismore Regional Uniting Church