Sharing Sunday services

[FerminRomeroDeTorres]

Thought I’d start a new thread where we can share what we’ve been impacted by in our Sunday services each week. Whether it’s something from the preach, a particular song sung, a word from God or a kind word from a fellow Jesus follower.

I know that for some getting out on a Sunday morning is tricky, for all sorts of reasons, and for others Sundays are anything but a day of rest, either because they are serving in the church, or because they are constantly wrangling little ones and struggle to engage, so thought this might be a nice place to share encouragement with one another, and might be a particular help to those for whom Sunday mornings aren’t always a blessing - a way to share the faith of others as it were, when our own is struggling.

I’ll be leaving shortly to get down to church - I’m preaching this morning on the beauty of God.

Our Divine Liturgy starts early on a Sunday because we share the church and have to leave before the CofE turn up for their Sunday service.

Our Priest gave a homily on persecution of the early Christians which sometimes consisted of seemingly small demands which required a Christian to make a small offering to a Roman god, but which was impossible to do for the Christian. Harsh punishment often followed; sometimes even death.

He explained that it is important to carry Christ in our hearts, not only in our mind and on our lips. We should never deny Him and to place Him first in everything we do. Never give in to the seemingly small acts of denial we may be required to do in this fallen world. No compromises. Remain strong in the Faith.

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This is the Orthodox Creed. We chant this during each Divine Liturgy.

That is a really beautiful version of the nicene creed @T4phage. I am part of a non-liturgical church but love liturgy and pray the Apostles creed regularly as an affirmation of my faith both to God and to myself.

I am really struck recently by the power of speaking out the truth and speaking out our beliefs - to affirm them for ourselves and to proclaim them to the world. It’s so hard sometimes when there is so much hostility around to faith, and to people of faith, but proclaiming our faith with freedom and joy is an act of remaining strong in our faith

I was singing in the band this morning and I find that tends to take my focus. But the service was mostly taken by the ex- Bishop and had plenty of liturgy ( hurrah) and also a sermon about demons and Jesus' interaction with them. The Bish was brought up in Africa and taked about his father being cursed. Such an interesting take and nowhere near as weird as I have made this sound!

I read from Isaiah this morning. Surely he has borne our infirmities
and carried our diseases;
yet we accounted him stricken,
struck down by God, and afflicted.
But he was wounded for our transgressions,
crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the punishment that made us whole,
and by his bruises we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have all turned to our own way,
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.

We have had a lot of turbulence in our lovely church recently and I have been deeply saddened by it and bad about myself. Our usual (lovely) vicar didn’t take the service today but sat in the pews alone, and I tried to read straight to her. We have all sinned and Jesus pardons far more readily than those down here.

This is a lovely thread.

We're in a sermon series on Acts, today was about the apostles sharing everything they had so nobody was in need.
It was a really positive sermon about changing from a scarcity mindset to a gratitude mindset, because if you focus on what you have rather than what you lack, you make space for community-mindedness.
We watched this clip from the Bible project about it:

Turbulence in churches is so completely painful. I have been in a church that has ‘split’ on more than one occasion because of the pastor and while I didn’t necessarily agree with the pastor or his stance on things, the most painful part of the process was the people who chose to malign those who weren’t on their ‘side’. Such grief where there should only be grace.

I often think of the quote from Jeremiah Burroughs (puritan preacher) - “diversity of belief and unity of believers are not inconsistent”. We are called to unite in love - for Christ has forgiven much, how much more should we forgive.

I love that @InMySpareTime. I love this line from an offertory prayer - “you have made us to be generous, but we greedily hoard is if your well will run dry” - what a gift to know that God’s well will never run dry - that He is not a God of scarcity but of overwhelming generosity

It was a strange Sunday for me, I sat in the congregation and listened instead of standing at the front and leading. The text was from Hebrew 2:1 "That is why we must hold on all the more firmly to the truths we have heard, so that we will not be carried away."
It was good to sit and listen and let God speak to me.

My friend was doing supply in one of his parishes this morning as the PP was unwell. So I went along as I was in his city. I was more distracted by him
Getting flustered by lots of prices paper he's not used to, and was worried about him tripping on the steps! Lovely music though. And saw an aqaintence.

We are in the middle of a series on Philippians. Today we looked at things that get in the way of living the life we were created for. However I was playing the piano in the band and I still get really nervous so it distracts me a bit

Are people’s services recorded? Ours are - we have a YouTube channel which started during covid to livestream the services and has continued since then. Lots of people still tune in online, either on the livestream or at some point in the week afterwards - if they’re away from home, or sick, or just can’t make it out that Sunday. I find it helpful if I’m preaching to listen back to my sermon afterwards and hear it as the congregation has heard it, or if I am involved in other ways and have been distracted, it’s good to go back and listen again .

Yes, ours is on YouTube and our Facebook page.

Waves at a fellow band member.
I'm a singer and today was on harmonies, aka winging it! But I do find I have to think so much about "what's next" ( 8 songs today)I don't focus on the service so well.

@FerminRomeroDeTorres one of our Sunday services is live-streamed and put on YouTube (DH was running today's livestream), we also started it during Lockdown.
We run a feed of the livestream through to the crèche too, so parents with preschoolers can watch the service without child noise disrupting the main church.

It was harvest festival today in both my churches. In the village one we sung acapella and made a good stab at a couple of hymns. The weather was dreadful so turnout was low. In the town church we had lots of visitors as we are in a tourist area. The church looked lovely with all the harvest flowers. There was a nasty moment when I lost my sermon notes which is odd because I preach without notes but there we go. The organist was on top form and the congregation had their first sermon where I walked around with a mic and asked for their reflections on how they deepen their relationship with God. The final,service was in a care hime where we belted out the harvest favourites. I'm now officially shattered.

That is good going @mostlydrinkstea! Hope you can rest well tonight (with a good cup of tea!)

We also share our church with the CofE but have our Liturgy in the afternoon. Makes the fast a challenge!

I love the Nicene Creed too but this week I was particularly struck by the beauty of the Beatitudes when chanted. I’ve found a version on Spotify which I really like and often listen to.

I will try to give an edited version.
Basically the style of worship has been changed for one Sunday a month. We are a lovely traditional church and this came as a huge shock. We weren’t given a massive amount of information and drew our own conclusions that it would be way more happy clappy and (hate to say it) tacky than the reality.
It turns out this was an instruction from higher up in the Diocese. But it was just such a shock. For many, me included, church is home, it’s family to us, and the idea of something so radical that it would make us too uncomfortable to go, was upsetting. It was like the door closing on me.
Our lovely vicar was someone I met when my beloved gran died last year and she helped me through. She has supported me better than family (who have pretty much ignored me). I wouldn’t have been without her and the church community have cared for me and made me welcome. It was my safe space. Then this hit. And I took it badly.
I feel appalled at myself that I didn’t support her in turn as she must have needed. I feel I have let her, and God down and thrown her kindness back in her face.
Four days before the ‘new worship’ the lovely churchwarden actually showed me the plan, and I saw it would not be as dreadful as we were led to believe. I attended, and while I didn’t get much out of it spiritually, I could at least be there and enjoy the fellowship.
I have felt awful since. I have offered to help at next month’s edition, to try and make amends. I know I am still grieving and this is probably clouding my judgement, and yes, I am attending a support group. I just regret the seismic wave this sent through my safe space and the pain its caused. And now I don’t know what my lovely friend must think of me. I don’t think a lot of myself tbh. I pray for her every day and hope she knows that my skepticism was fear, fear of not being welcome in the one place I knew community and support in the hardest time of life.

Hope you all had a lovely blessed Sunday.

I was small child wrangling for most of it, but had a lovely conversation with DD1, aged not quite 4, (as I took her out to go to the toilet for the nth time!) We'd just sung "Great is Thy Faithfulness" and she asked me what faithfulness was. So I said it was always being trustworthy and doing what you've said you would and that God is like that.

"Oh," she said, "like Percy taking the children home in the flood." For those of you less well versed in Thomas the Tank, Percy struggles on through the floodwaters because he's promised one of the other engines (Thomas, I think) to take the children home. I loved that, it showed she'd really understood the concept, and actually that story is a great picture of faithfulness.

I love that @110APiccadilly! From the mouths of babes - eh?

@110APiccadilly I'm sitting sorting out hymns for next Sunday. Unless you object I will include "Great is thy Faithfulness" and tell a short version of your story before we sing the hymn

RC Mass at my usual church. I went to the Saturday evening as one of my kids was playing sport on Sunday and needed to be taken to that service. Then my usual Sunday service with the rest of the kids.

Half term seemed to mean a lot of adults were away, but all the families were there. We usually have a lot of children (teens mainly) and the lack of adults this week made that more obvious, which I love.

Despite hearing the readings and sermon twice, it still didn't go in. I really have to concentrate hard to take in spoken lectures, so I can't share that really. Though the psalm reading has the response of "May your love be upon us, O Lord, as we place all our hope in you" That stuck with me as it's such a beautiful prayer and there is a song version which is one of my favourites.

(and that reminds me the homily was about hope in the Lord!)

Basically another lovely Sunday with my church family.

@OldJohn Aw, I'm touched. And I'm sure the Rev Awdry would be delighted. I wonder whether he used to tell train stories to his Sunday School class, if he had one.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Sunday and was blessed by meeting with fellow believers. We had the rare treat of the whole family sitting together in church this morning - our eldest is home from uni for a few days for reading week and it coincided with none of us serving in church this morning so we were all able to be together, and it felt so special - it doesn’t happen very often. It’s such a joy to see my kids worship God with full gusto, to see my middle one taking notes through the sermon and to see them all speak to so many people after the service. Loads of people always come and speak to my eldest when he’s home and it‘s so lovely to see the tangible reality of how he belongs even though he’s away most of the year, and my younger ones (all teens) are surrounded by the little kids after the service and it’s wonderful to see how respected they are by the parents and what good role models they are for the littles in the church. Inter-generational relationships are one of the most beautiful aspects of church life and that is what has really blessed me today.

We're still on Acts, yesterday's sermon was on commissioning for acts of service, after the service everyone cleared the chairs together for Thursday's light party.
It was nice to see people responding directly to the sermon so immediately.
It was also nice to have acts of service framed as an opportunity and a privilege rather than an obligation and arm-twisting.