Christian Coffee House - Prayer/Chat thread. No rubbish church coffee allowed.

[Madhairday]

With the latest prayer thread coming to an end, we thought we would create a new thread for prayer and general chat too - we had chat threads running for years alongside prayer threads, and we thought it would be great to combine them. I try and collate some of the prayer requests from the last thread in the next few days. In the meantime, dive in! Lurkers/newbies - you are welcome to post. Feel free to start any chat subject about Christianity, church, worship etc, and do share any prayer needs.
Would love to hear from those who were on previous threads and haven't been around for a while, too. Come and let us know how you are.

Lovely to see new people joining. No I don’t post in AIBU either.

I do but try not to get drawn into the debates.

Welcome to newbies, lurkers and re-joiners, it's so great to see you all :) whatever stage of faith you're at, whether full on or just exploring, you're very welcome here.

ZenNudist it's lovely to read about something of your experience over the past year. I'm so pleased you've found it to be a positive experience returning to Catholicism. Thank you for sharing

@erinaceus welcome, jump in and ask questions if you wish.

Lol at all the Shine Jesus Shine love-hate. I just find that one tedious but thankfully never hear it nowadays, it's so three decades ago 😂

I often jump in on the debate threads but have to be feeling strong and ready to take a beating. There's so much misinformation being shared and I always want to go and correct all of it!! But we can't do everything. Good to hear there are some fairly polite threads at the moment, I haven't seen those I don't think, but I've been so busy lately I've hardly looked at MN.

How is everyone here today? Rafa I'm so glad your anxiety eased a little :)

@Madhairday Thank you for the welcome, appreciated.

Here is a stupid question: RE your questionnaire is convention my answers or what we do at the church that I go to? For some context I’ve been going for one month. So far so good.

RE Shine Jesus Shine, I remember from childhood that it was well-liked. I guess it’s the simple melody(?) I’m not sure how I would feel about it if we sung it in my church these days.

We sang SJS a couple of weeks ago and it was such a change from the dirges of the 1870s that my music director usually chooses that it was a breath of fresh air. Which is odd as I don't really like it. Perhaps we sang it too much when it first came out. It is a simple tune and catchy. Ear worm catchy.

Now I have to wrestle with a sermon on the transfiguration. Need tea. Lots of tea.

@erinaceus, no 'right answer' - just what you naturally prefer if you like? It's just a getting-to-know-one-another thing. How are you today?

Mostlydrinkstea, so good to see you around here. How is life for you?

Saw this on the Tearfund email this morning and thought I'd share it - a prayer for Lent:

Lord Jesus,
This Lent –
Repair my relationships,
Renew my heart,
Restore my hope,
Revitalise my spirit,
Return my whole being to you.
In your precious name,
Amen.

That’s a beautiful prayer MHD.
No, there are no ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ answers erinaceous, they were just a bit of fun that one of the contributors to a chat thread set up years ago. They don’t make a lot of sense to someone who is new to church going. How are you finding it? Have you made friends? Joined any of the ‘not on Sunday’ events?

How are you dear Oma?

I am ok. Off to see TUO and PandaG (anybody remember her? She was one of the first MN’ters I met in RL in 2007) at the end of the week in combination with a Hugathon in Leeds

Send our best regards Dutchoma. I'm looking forward to Lent this year. I'm going to pray for and reflect on people I don't get on with. (Gets out really long list 🤣)

It has been a horrible, horrible year but I'm through all the firsts and now it is about looking forward. I've just planted the first seeds of the year which seems symbolic of new starts.

Thanks for the welcomes everybody. Church going is going okay, I seem to have found somewhere that suits for now. I am getting there with familiar faces and after-church chats and tea and biscuits and apparently something this Sunday, I just sort of say “sure” and go along with things.

Coffee or tea? - Tea after church

Hymns or worship songs? - We alternate, I think I like the worship songs better

Band or organ? - See above

Flavour/denomination? - CoE, city centre type location. Diverse, inclusive, all soft-sell and funny.

What sort of after church snack? - A biscuit. Like a fig roll maybe or a chocolate digestive.

Hello. mhd replied on my thread and reminded me I'd not posted in here for quite while. Though I have been keeping you all in my prayers.

I must thank whoever it was who directed me to the nuns on Facebook (holy trinity Monastry I think they're called). Reading their posts and blogs has been a real blessing since losing my community.

Tough week ahead for me, my periods are now so bad they render me bedbound, not to mention terrfied. Ive a mental health appointment - in an inaccessible building which no one will do anything about as "no one else has complained" and I've an appointment with my GP whose patience regarding my medical phobia is wearing very thin indeed.

The church I attended is very likely to close thanks to being rural and local politics winning out, which is very sad. The mental health professional who bullied me for over a decade about mindfulness which led to me being forced out of my religious community due to strictness I've learnt has decided to go join a religious community themselves which is against mindfulness and that means the church they were in charge of will now close as a result as they don't have enough people to warrant a vicar and being rural people cannot travel to a church with a vicar. Anyway, I'm struggling a lot with rage and anger towards them, I know it sounds awful but I am. They were, and it's all over Facebook page for their community in their new community (against mindfulness) whilst demanding I was being silly about mindfulness and there was no way any community would be against it and at that time was writing for their website on how it doesn't help.

I've got my bible journal, I opted for the Catholic inspire which has all the apocrypha in it as well as I use a catholic bible in my daily prayer (when I say it and I've not for awhile). I put a thread on here about it as having waited weeks for it I'm now looking at it basically reading bits and looking at the pictures going "oooo nice" and not wanting to ruin it at all - not really the point!

Tea
Hymns
Organ
Traditional Anglican Benedictine
No after church snack

Those were my answers when I went anyway.

Now no services at all; though I've services to say at home; tea(!) and a hymn book. I don't really have a denomination anymore. Benedictine drifter? Sort of.

Coffee
Worship
Band
Vineyard
Donuts (when we have them!)

Hi all! Growing up as a traditional Anglican, have to jump on Shine Jesus Shine...I love it probably because it was the most interesting song we were aloud to sing back in the day!

I like the lent prayer MHD. I thought I will pray it "later" but then did it right now. I dont know if it counts as its chaos round here. Am staying with friends and my kids are playing with their 3yo so its not peaceful. In any case I have been weirdly excited for lent to start and do it all properly this year.

Becca hello I have never heard Benedictine drifter as a denomination what do you mean by Benedictine? I associate that with nuns and monks. Then again I've never met anyone who describes themselves as 'Vineyard' like CDO (hello too). But I have a vague idea what that means. Its really good to meet other denominations.

Today I am a bit concerned Im going to miss church which I try to never do. I'm staying with friends and DH has asked that I dont disappear off for an hour as we hardly ever see them. I can go at 5pm when I get home but I really want to go to the church in my friends' village which will have singing and hopefully be cheerful. DH will be annoyed.

zen the drifter bit was me being sarcastic. Traditionally Anglican but the services I do at home at Catholic. The Benedictine part is about following St Benedicts rule as is done in monasteries (Benedictine houses for nuns are also called monasteries) as much as I can at home. I was, long story, asked to leave my community so am no longer officially affiliated with a community but I still do readings and read the rule as much as I can (it's upsetting to do as it reminds me of my community but at the same time it's upsetting not to as well).

Not sure that'll help, I may have confused you even more!

Hiya Becca, good to see you back.
I too love Digitalnun and Quietnun and their little dog Brother Dyfrig BFdB, successor to the saintly Bother Duncan PBGV.
Their fortitude and wisdom shines through everything they say and they are a great inspiration.
Have you ever read Rumer Godden, In this house of Brede? That is a wonderful novel set in a Benedictine Monastery. I have recently re-read it and it is now doing the rounds in the choir.
Christiandadonline Isn’t it funny how SJS divides the worshippers?

oma was it you who pointed me in their direction? If so then thankyou with all my heart. They've helped me more than you can imagine.

"In this house of brede" is a book I read every year, recently rereleased (before that it was extremely hard to find). When I went on retreats it was my constant companion (the guestmistress would groan when she saw it - like digitalnun it was often given to those needing correction shall we say? ) interestingly it was based on standbrook abbey (and st cecilias ryde) and both digitalnun and quietnun were nuns there before it closed in 2008 (I think). I loved standbrook in callow end, couldn't possibly get to the new one!!

I had ‘In this House of Brede‘ in a beautiful hard back binding and let it go to the Oxfam bookshop in a fit of tidying a number of years ago. Then missed it so much that I ordered it again from Amazon. It is a really tatty copy in paperback, but much loved for all that.
I’m not sure it was me that pointed you in the direction of Holy Trinity Monastery, it might have been since I have been following them for several years now.

I've hard back I ordered from Amazon and it was from a Benedictine Monastry library that was being closed - very well read!!

Whether it was you of someone else, someone here mentioned them to me last summer because they were following them and I'm very grateful to whomever it was!

That is quite special Becca

It is! Again it was for novices. I now know of at least four nuns who had her book used for discipline as novices! I often wonder what Rumer Godden would think of that!!

This is a lovely thread! So glad I found it.

I’ve found discussing faith hard on MN. Even threads that have been started by asking people about their faith end up with people being hostile and demanding to know why suffering happens etc It confuses me why people assume people with faith have answers to everything! We don’t.

Hi Russellbrandshair I read some of the things you wrote on an AIBU thread about religion and really agreed with you. Keep posting! I never manage to explain faith very well. People are so cynical about God now that you can't even ask for just a believers chat (like when Ive had questions about Catholicism) without someone wading in to slag religion off.

Dutchoma and Becca thanks I found the holy trinity website and digitalnun's blog which will keep me going for a while. Just downloaded "In this house of brede". Im really interested in the religious life. Sounds very hard!