Prayer and Worship
Private Prayer in church
All five of our churches are open again for private prayer 24/7.
We pray that every visitor will find something of the peace of God in our churches. Take time to sit and take in the surroundings of each holy place, every one set aside as a place to pray and encounter the divine for perhaps a thousand years or more.
Public Worship
Our benefice offeres regular and inclusive public worship in church on three occasions almost every Sunday. There will be at least one Holy Communion in the benefice each week. We also endeavour to offer a variety of other services both contemporary and traditional, formal and informal to meet different needs and experience.
All of our churches strive to be welcoming and inclusive.
Many of our services are followed by refreshments and an opportunity to meet the congregation and minister.
I have provided three main sets of resources that may be useful at home or before visiting our churches:
Ways to worship from home
We have quite a variety of activity.
WHile we no longer broadcast from church as we cannot compete with the quality of other major churches and our connections to the internet are so fragile in the rural settings, we do have links to a collection of our past broadcasts.
You can also find Red James Sawyer's Channel here on YouTube.
I have provided access to copies of our service booklets and a selection ideas to both recreate and preserve something of the way we have worship together in our church buildings in the past and discover new ways to be church in the future.
Worship online...
We still have Compline - a form of Night Prayer - on Zoom on Wednesdays. For security reasons the links are only shared directly with members on our email list.
Join our regular email list to get the links to interactive services via zoom
Praying anywhere
These resources are some of the many ways you might develop a connection with God, wherever you are. There are some conventional liturgies and some ideas to make a prayer space in your home. I've also uploaded sound recordings of different services to provide a voice to pray with you if you are alone.
There is also a help section on ways to pray
Bible Study
These resources are intended to help and encourage greater understanding of the bible.
If you have ideas, needs, comments... please get in touch
A blessing for the UK
You might like this video (lyrics here if you want to sing along):
More resources from the Church of England and other Christian websites
Discover links to regular broadcasts from the National Church every Sunday and listen to Dail Prayer
Discover more on the Church of England WebsiteOther sites that may be of interest:
St Albans Cathedral regularly live stream services which you may enjoy.
The Lord’s Prayer
It is a source of great comfort to those of us who sometime struggle with prayer to know that the Disciples struggled too! They asked Jesus how to pray - they saw that deep relationship between Christ and his Father, and they saw how their own relationship with God was lacking so they asked for help. Jesus’ response is what we call the Lord’s Prayer:
Our Father, who art 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,
the power and the glory,
for ever and ever.
Amen.
Jesus broke all the rules of his time and told us we can call God Father or even Dad. This intimacy was revolutionary - and still is. We are to pray also for ‘Thy Kingdom to come’ - we want Earth to become as Heaven (and we are to work for this too). We know we get it wrong and we need forgiveness, and indeed to believe that we ourselves are forgiven; and we need help to forgive others. And we need to praise God and know that his Kingdom is the one we pray for and the one we need - always. Forever. Amen.
Contact
The Vicarage
Great Hormead
Buntingford
Hertfordshire
SG9 0NT
01763 289258