He leaves the youth group with the wonderful Book of Common Prayer Collect for the Second Sunday in Advent, which is actually an urgent prayer for every Christian disciple for every day of our journey through the wilderness of this world:
Blessed Lord, who has hast caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant that we may in such wise hear them, read, mark, learn and inwardly digest them, that by patience and comfort of thy holy Word, we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which thou hast given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.
Youth group prayers would be appreciated for a fruitful outreach through our Christmas services and a positive impact for Christ's gospel from our Christmas newsletters going God willing to every home in the parish.
This piece - The end of the traditional church wedding? - appeared on Archbishop Cranmer.
Update AD 18/12/11 This piece about Christmas carol singing in pubs appeared on Heresy Corner.
Update 19/12/11 This opinion piece about the significance of David Cameron's Christ Church Oxford speech in support of biblical values appeared on Christian Today.
Update 20/12/11 Another piece on the implications of the Christ Church speech appeared on US-based orthodox Anglican news service VirtueOnline.
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ReplyDeleteTime off for pagan celebrations... That's very 'modern' of you Mann.
ReplyDeleteA postman doesn't generally have time off over Christmas. The church has 3000 Christmas newsletters to deliver around the parish and given our size I'm going to have to do a fair proportion of them.
ReplyDeleteTime was, Advent 2 was also Bible Sunday, possibly due to those familiar words above. Now it seems to have disappeared to some more 'relevant' part of the calendar, possibly to avoid the Christmas rush.
ReplyDeleteWhat more relevant collect could there be to Christmas? If there's one thing the modern Christian really needs to understand, it's the relevance of things written 2000 years ago and more.
Richard, Nobody has much time in Advent - not even Christians, and particularly not Vicars or Cranmer's Curates (see original post if you don't believe me). To move Bible Sunday to a less cluttered time of the year (late October, for the uninitiated) is an excellent idea, and many churches - by no means all of Evangelical tradition - have taken it up. Of course the Bible is relevant to Christmas; but if it comes to that, it's relevant to Advent, Epiphany, Lent, Passiontide, Easter, Pentecost and Ordinary Time as well!!
ReplyDeleteSteve,
ReplyDeleteI appreciate that the bustle of Advent dominates all else and, being a Reader, I get involved in it myself. However, this is the time of year when all sorts of people with nominal or no connection to our churches come to our services, mostly carefully constructed and available at no other time of the year (Christingle, Carol Services, Midnight Communion, to name but three).
What do they gain from this experience? Do they retain any idea of why the church exists for the other 11 months of the year? If we can't give a good account of ourselves when plenty of people are around to hear it, perhaps we should ask ourselves about the message we are giving to the world.
Great collect, Julian. Thanks for all your posts. May you and yours have a blessed and restful Christmas.
ReplyDeleteRichard,
ReplyDeleteI agree with everything you say. My point was, let's have our special celebration of the Bible when neither our committed congregation, nor outsiders whom we might want to invite, are too preoccupied, tired and busy to latch onto it. BY ALL MEANS preach the Word to those who come for the Christmas celebrations (only don't fall for the temptation to try to say too much, as they won't take it all in!)