'Keep Praying' is a thread of prayer to weave through all we do in our churches and local communities throughout 2021 and to help us stay connected in prayer across our diocese. There will be a different theme for each liturgical season, and 3 simple ways to pray that theme in our personal prayers, our gathered worship and our reaching out to those around us.
Join Bishop Rose as she introduces Keep Praying Pentecost – Spirit of Love, leading us out
Keep Praying Pentecost – Spirit of Love, leading us out
'Breathe on us, breath of God; fill us with life anew'
Image: Spirit of Love, leading us out, Primrose Northrop, 2021
Reflect on the image. What do you see? What catches your attention?
As we emerge from a year of pandemic and lockdown restrictions, how do you feel? Are you joyful, apprehensive, curious, impatient? What is your greatest hope? What is your greatest fear?
What is the Holy Spirit leading you out from? What is the Holy Spirit leading you out to?
What do you think we, the church, are being led out from? What are we being led out to?
Draw your own picture in response to our Easter image.
Use the picture as a focus for prayer in gathered worship or at the start of a meeting. Invite people to look at it and notice what God is drawing their attention to. If time allows, invite them to share their reflections.
Use the picture on your website or social media pages, accompanied by a few sentences about the meaning of Easter.
Holy Spirit, flame of unstinting love,
Warm our hearts and soothe our pains through this long journey of pandemic.
Stay our fears and renew our joy,
That we may be eager to share our faith
And energised to reach for hope.
Instead of praying at home, take your Bible to a coffee shop and have a prayer time there. Instead of praying with your eyes closed, look around you and pray silently for people sitting nearby. You may not know what they’re dealing with in life, but pray prayers of blessing: asking the Spirit to touch their lives with love, peace, joy and hope.
If you get chatting to someone, offer to pray for them. You could pray with them there and then, if you’re both comfortable with that, or you could simply promise to hold them in your prayers as you go your separate ways. Even if you know almost nothing about them, you can pray blessing on them, asking God’s Spirit to bring love, peace, joy and hope.
Go on a ‘prayer walk’, alone or with others (observing government guidelines):
Walk somewhere where you can discover the diversity of the natural world. Stop to notice things you might normally overlook, and let your discoveries prompt you to prayer.
Walk around your local community, noticing the people who live and work there. Pray for the people and places you pass. Use our guide on doing a pilgrimage prayer walk around your local community:
Ask your neighbours if they’re facing situations for which they’d appreciate prayer. You could ask them in person or simply put cards through the doors, assuring people of your prayers and inviting them to drop a note through your door with any prayer needs they might have.
Prayer doesn’t have to be words. Choose something symbolic of blessing, like seeds or flower petals, and walk through your local community, praying and scattering your blessings wherever you go. (Please choose to scatter something biodegradable)
If you’re leading an online meeting, make time to bless a place or group of people: invite everyone present to think about that place/those people, then unmute themselves long enough to say the phrase ‘(name of place/people), may you be blessed with …’ and to finish the sentence with the word which best sums up the blessing they want to pray – words like hope, courage, comfort, peace, justice.
Reflect … the early church did much of their meeting and praying together in the Temple Courts – the marketplace of their day. How might our communities be changed and blessed if we did more of our meeting and praying in public places?
