St Peter's Church
2:55pm Monday 30th July 2012 in Flushing
As July 29 was the fifth Sunday in the month, a family service was held led by Colin Brown, Church Army Evangelist. His wife, Angela, preached the sermon. During intercessional prayers, Colin asked the congregation to write down on a given piece of paper personal prayers and thoughts inspired by his intercessions. These were brought up to the chancel and fixed onto a wooden cross and left there.
In her sermon, Angela said that the two readings speak of how the kingdom of heaven breaks into our very ordinary lives and give us an image of God's loving activity in Christ, His longing to feed us spiritually and that God is always more than we can hope, imagine or understand. John portrays Jesus as being spiritual nourishment for the soul. We are called to be people of faith and read the gospel account with hearts and minds of faith. Paul's prayer for the people of Ephesus is intercessory prayer at its very best. He longs for them to grow in faith and trust that the fullness of God is at work within them. The Holy Spirit and the constant presence of Christ are always at work in our lives whether we feel it or not and this is the gift of faith. Christ's love is so profound that its depths can never be sounded and its extent never encompassed by our human minds. Jesus, who always takes the initiative, longs to feed us, nourish us and deepen our faith. Will we open our hands to receive what could be more than we imagined?
The Epistle, taken from St Paul's letter to the Ephesians chapter 3 v 14-21, was read by Irene Gardiner and the gospel reading taken from John chapter 6 v 1-15, was read by Sylvia Ollerenshaw. Organist was Joan Treloar.
