Yesterday in our service we experienced a powerful song of lament and reconciliation. Today we invite you to re-engage with that piece in a prayerful posture, allowing God to open your heart up in deep ways to intercede for the lonely, hurting, and disenfranchised people all around you. 

What in this song resonates inside of you, in your own experience? 

What in this song might resonate with people around you? 

How can you help bridge the gap with love today? 

Click Here for Plowshare Prayer by Spencer LaJoye (* click the “CC” button for the closed captioning option so you don’t miss any of the love-packed lyrics!)

Consider this ancient prayer of St. Teresa of Avila, a 15th century Spanish Catholic nun and mystic: 

Christ has no body but yours. 

No hands, no feet on earth but yours. 

Yours are the eyes with which he looks 

Compassion on this world. 

Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good. 

Yours are the hands with which he blesses all the world. 

Yours are the hands, yours are the feet, 

Yours are the eyes, you are his body. 

Christ has no body now bur yours.

Reflect: How does this prayer make you feel? What emotions does it bring up in you? Spend a few minutes paying attention to your heart, and talk with God about whatever surfaces in you. 

Embody: How will you respond to the call in these words, today? How will you embody the life of Christ in this world – beginning with the moments in front of you right now?

On Sunday we waded into the complicated waters of acknowledging pain experienced in – and through – the church. (If you missed that message check out our Online Service page to catch up.) 2 

Today we invite you to re-visit the spiritual practice that followed the message, an imaginative prayer experience of allowing Jesus to meet us at the site of our pain. 

Where do you have unresolved pain, as a result of your involvement with church? How might you be able to encounter Jesus right in the centre of that pain? Is there anything you need to do outwardly, to help resolve what is still sitting wounded inside? 

Click Here for the Wounded Healers imaginative prayer practice

On Sunday Jeff described how Jesus extended a healing forgiveness to Peter, even after the hurt suffered between them with Peter’s denial of Christ in the lead up to the crucifixion. Take some time today to absorb the fuller telling of that story in the passage below. 

Scripture: Click Here to read John 21:1-19 

Read the passage over slowly, prayerfully and attentively a few times. As you do, allow God to highlight a word, phrase or verse – something that jumps out at you personally. 

Observations: Think about what is being said, by who, and why they might be saying it the way they are. What is the surrounding context? What other background information do you have? How and where do you see the heart of Jesus in this? Don’t make conclusions or applications yet, just observe everything you can. 

Application: Now consider how this passage might apply personally to your life. In what way does it speak to your own circumstances? How can it help you? How does it challenge you? How does it call you to love both God and others better? How does this word from God apply directly to your day-to-day life and how you are learning to follow Jesus? 

Prayer: Now that you’ve read and reflected on God’s word and begun the process of application to your life, simply talk to God about it all. Share what’s swirling in your head and heart, allow space to listen for what the Holy Spirit is wanting to say to you in return as well.

Today we invite you to once again engage in the Prayer of Examen, as we have been doing on a regular basis lately. Examen is one of the most valuable spiritual practices we have to help us tune in more clearly to the presence and activity of God all around us every day, in all kinds of situations. 

Click Here for an 9-minute guided practice in the Prayer of Examen, reflecting on the past week.