St JOHN THE DIVINE CHURCH
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    • Home
    • Services and notice sheet
    • LENT
    • ***NEWS***
    • Children @ St Johns
    • Useful info
    • Useful links
    • Bible Reading
    • Prayer Walk Worship
    • St John's Church Hall
    • Music at St John's
    • The Church
    • St John's Garden Room
    • How to find us
    • Events
    • Weddings at St John's
    • Christening / Baptism
    • Arranging a Funeral
    • Messy Church
    • Selsdon Centre
    • Toddler Groups
    • St John's Pictures
    • Gift Aid Forms
  • Home
  • Services and notice sheet
  • LENT
  • ***NEWS***
  • Children @ St Johns
  • Useful info
  • Useful links
  • Bible Reading
  • Prayer Walk Worship
  • St John's Church Hall
  • Music at St John's
  • The Church
  • St John's Garden Room
  • How to find us
  • Events
  • Weddings at St John's
  • Christening / Baptism
  • Arranging a Funeral
  • Messy Church
  • Selsdon Centre
  • Toddler Groups
  • St John's Pictures
  • Gift Aid Forms

Welcome to
St John's Church Selsdon

Welcome to St John's Church Selsdon Welcome to St John's Church Selsdon Welcome to St John's Church Selsdon

Lent 2021

Reflect

 Once again we have the opportunity to check in with ourselves. We have possibilities for a fuller way to live. Lent offers the opportunity to explore where we are, what we could consider changing, what is working for us. 

Pray

 The Hebrew Scriptures appointed for Lent have such key insights. Join us over the next few weeks as we look at the readings.

Give

 As we are in a pandemic this year maybe its a time to not give up but give back.


How about over the Lent period giving back by doing a good deed such as :


  • Giving to a local food bank
  • Sending a card to someone who needs cheering up in these strange times.
  • Offering to do a shop for an elderly neighbour 
  • Call a friend who you haven't spoken to in a while (it's good to talk) 
  • Volunteering for a local charity


Ash Wednesday

A short service taken by The Reverend Michael Skinner. 



Prayer For Today

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A prayer from The Church of England #livelent

   Saturday 6th March 2021



Living Your Story


Bible reading - 1 Thessalonians 2.4-8 (NLT)

For we speak as messengers approved by God to be entrusted with the Good News. Our purpose is to please God, not people. He alone examines the motives of our hearts. Never once did we try to win you with flattery, as you well know. And God is our witness that we were not pretending to be your friends just to get your money! As for human praise, we have never sought it from you or anyone else.

Reflection

Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you are saying.”

Hannah Steele writes: “Paul knew that the gospel story could never be communicated purely with words but it had to be lived as well. Our story becomes more authentic to people when they see that it really does impact the way we live our lives. It is often through our daily lives that we demonstrate the topsy-turvy way of the kingdom of God. In a culture where people are more interested in whether things work than whether things are true, our lived experience becomes a potent advocate in our everyday witness.”

In other words, people need to see the authenticity of our story in who we are if they are to be truly touched by the story we speak about.

Prayer

Jesus, please help us to tell the story of your love and goodness through the way we live as well as in the words we say. Amen.

Action for the week

This week, take time to think about how God has changed you. Have there been particular moments when you have known God has been at work in your life? Collect your thoughts in your notebook or journal. 

Third Week Of Lent 7th March 2021

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Dear God, Help us to choose Your Way this Lent. Amen. 


  How are we taking care of the Temple that is our bodies? 


What things might we do to be healthier?


 What healthy snacks we are choosing? 


 Are we getting sufficient water? exercise? 


 What would we subtract or add?


    

  

Thank you God, for helping us notice how we do our part. Amen


 

 

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John 2:13-22

 The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.  In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables.  Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables.  He told those who were selling the doves, “Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!”  


His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.”  The Jews then said to him, “What sign can you show us for doing this?”  Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”  The Jews then said, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?”  But he was speaking of the temple of his body.  After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken. 

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 Jesus went to the Temple. A whole bunch of people were  selling stuff. “Take these things out of here!” Jesus said. 


“This is supposed to be a place to pray.”   


What gets in our way when we decide to pray?   What helps us pay attention when we pray?  

 



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Exodus 20:1-17

  I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery;  you shall have no other gods before me.

You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 

You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me,  but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation  of those who love me and keep my commandments. 

You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name. Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work.  But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns.


 For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it.


 Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.


 You shall not murder.


You shall not commit adultery.


 You shall not steal.


You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.


You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor. 


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Moses needed help leading the people.   God gave him the Ten Commandments so they could figure out what to do — and not do.  


How does it help us do the right thing when we know the rules? 


 How does it help when we try to figure out what God wants us to do?   


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