Sunday 1st May, 2022
Prepared by Rev. Derek Grimshaw
Second Chances

Incorporating material from the Methodist Website

Opening Prayer

Almighty God, we gather in your presence once again. Lord, be with us and bless us so that this time of worship may edify us and bring you glory. Amen

Hymn: StF28 Jesus calls us here to meet him Watch on Youtube

Jesus calls us here to meet him
as, through word and song and prayer,
we affirm God’s promised presence
where his people live and care.
Praise the God who keeps his promise;
praise the Son who calls us friends;
praise the Spirit who, among us,
to our hopes and fears attends.

Jesus calls us to confess him
Word of life and Lord of all,
sharer of our flesh and frailness,
saving all who fail or fall.
Tell his holy human story;
tell his tales that all may hear;
tell the world that Christ in glory
came to earth to meet us here.

Jesus calls us to each other,
vastly different though we are;
creed and colour, class and gender
neither limit nor debar.
Join the hand of friend and stranger;
join the hands of age and youth;
join the faithful and the doubter
in their common search for truth.

Jesus calls us to his table
rooted firm in time and space,
where the Church in earth and heaven
finds a common meeting place.
Share the bread and wine, his body;
share the love of which we sing;
share the feast for saints and sinners
hosted by our Lord and King.

John L. Bell (b. 1949) and Graham Maule (b. 1958)

Let us pray together

God of all, we come to proclaim your greatness, to sing of your might and to declare your majesty. We lift up our hearts and voices to praise you for all you have accomplished in Christ.
We come to praise you for your faithfulness, your amazing grace and forgiveness.
We come to acknowledge Jesus as our Saviour and master – the way, truth and the life.
We praise you for the constant presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives. As we worship you today, draw us closer to you and to Christ.
Merciful God, we are ashamed of our weakness and faults, selfishness, pride and envy, the feeble discipleship and the shallowness of our faith.
Help us to live as your people, worthy of our calling and bring you honour. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Prayers adapted from Nick Fawcett’s ‘Prayers for all seasons’, 1& 2.

Today’s Gospel Reading: John 21:1-19

Time to Reflect

The last two years have been challenging, frustrating, and even frightening and as we start to pull out of all that has happened, most of us find the days quite stressful. This is a new experience for us and if you are anything like me, you feel all at sea.  There are times when all I want to do is go back to where we were at the beginning of 2020, when I had a pretty good idea about how things worked, and then there are other times when I want to move on, do something different, take advantage of the gift of space that we have been given.

We need perhaps to get into the mindset of the early disciples, following the narrative of St John’s Gospel, the disciples have already seen the risen Christ on Easter day, and then a week later, we don’t know exactly when the events on the shore of the Sea of Galilee happened, but we assume that it was sometime after the other two appearances.  The disciples are at a loose end and don’t know what to do, so they go back to what they had been doing three years earlier, before their time as disciples of Jesus.  They were unsuccessful and it is into their failure that Jesus came to them.

I have been thinking this year about why things happened, the first visit was to confirm to the disciples that he was risen, the second was to prove to Thomas what he needed to experience so that he might believe, this appearance, as far as I can see is for the benefit of Peter.  Peter had promised his undying commitment to Jesus, and yet when his back was to the wall, he denied even knowing Christ, this must have been a heavy burden to carry.

Jesus came to the disciples on the shore so that he might help Peter to put all that had happened behind him and move on.  The disciples had gone back to what they knew, but Jesus wanted them to move forward and establish a new Church, one that would need Peter, the rock on which Christ would build his Church.

So where do we stand today? Please reflect:

• Where do you want to go, back to where you feel comfortable? Or forward into challenging places.
• What have you done, that really needs to be dealt with before you move on?
• How might you work closer with Christ in the next steps of your personal ministry?

A time of prayer

All knowing God, we thank you for our calling as your disciples. We acknowledge that your love is beyond our understanding. So we pray for those who feel that they are unworthy of your love…
May they be touched afresh as Peter was touched and restored by Jesus.
Lord God, we pray for those whose faith is tested daily due to poverty, persecution or any other difficulty.
May they have the courage to trust in Jesus.
We pray for those too who find Christian faith not relevant, those who are searching you in other things.
May they be moved by the Holy Spirit to ‘know’ you as St. Paul knew on the road to Damascus.
We pray for the leaders of nations, church leaders and, our Queen and the royal family.
May they have your wisdom and discernment to act responsibly and work for the good of all.
We ask all these prayers in confidence and in Jesus’ name. Amen.

The Lord’s Prayer

Our Father ……

Hymn: StF674 Would I have answered Watch on Youtube

Would I have answered when you called,
‘Come follow, follow me!’?
Would I at once have left behind
both work and family?
Or would the old, familiar round
have held me by its claim
and kept the spark within my heart
from bursting into flame?

Would I have followed where you led
through ancient Galilee,
on roads unknown, by ways untried,
beyond security?
Or would I soon have hurried back
where home and comfort drew,
where truth you taught would not disturb
the ordered world I knew?

Would I have matched my step with yours
when crowds cried, ‘Crucify!’,
when on a rocky hill I saw a cross
against the sky?
Or would I too have slipped away
and left you there alone,
a dying king with crown of thorns
upon a terrible throne?

O Christ, I cannot search my heart
through all its tangled ways,
nor can I with a certain mind
my steadfastness appraise.
I only pray that when you call,
‘Come follow, follow me!’,
you’ll give me strength beyond my own
to follow faithfully.

Herman G. Stuempfle, Jr  (1923-2007)

A prayer of blessing

Gracious God, take our faith, flawed though it is, our love, poor though it may be, and our commitment, for all its imperfections, and use us in your service to make known your gracious purpose, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Prayer taken from Nick Fawcett, Prayers for all seasons, book 2, p. 655, no. 309

Hymns reproduced under CCLI License No. 9718
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