Rambling Rector

From the Rambling Rector  

 

  

‘Try Praying’ is a sign that I recently saw outside a church in Devon, and it made me wonder how many people would see the sign, and think, ‘why not, I have got nothing to lose’. Out of all the things that you could try to cure whatever it is that you would like cured, prayer is often the last thing to which people turn. The worst that you could lose is a bit of time, and you might gain a lot more than you expected. Of the many things I was given when I left my church in Filleigh, North Devon to train for ordination, was a T-shirt with the words ‘Prayer works’ in the shape of a cross. I believe prayer works, just often not quite as we expect. 

The churches of Askerswell, Loders, Powerstock, North Poorton and Symondsbury are open every day for anybody to pop in, reflect and pray, as well as to feel the awesomeness of these ancient buildings. When a place has been prayed in, for sometimes hundreds of years, you can feel the peace just by being in the building. Each of these churches have prayer trees in them and anybody can write a prayer and place it on the tree. Our Benefice Lay Pastoral Assistant, Liz Guard changes the colour and shape of these every month. This enables the prayers on the tree to be recent. When she puts out the new prayer leaves she collects the ones that are 2 months old and takes them to ‘CAKE’– a time of discussion, reflection and prayer for anyone in the benefice and beyond, which is held on the first Tuesday of the month, 2.30pm – 4pm. The prayers are kept confidential, but they are all prayed over, asking God to be with all those whose have written them, and with those who have been asked to be prayed for. The Rambling Rector reads the prayers on the prayer trees regularly when in each of the churches, and prays for those mentioned. It is not necessary to put a lot of information on these prayer leaves, certainly no need to put anything confidential. ‘Please pray for Chris’ is enough. God knows the details, and He knows when anybody places a prayer and when anybody reads it. 

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Then once a year, Liz passes on to me all the collected prayers, and I read and re-pray over each one and then they are burnt, leaving no permanent record. I recently did this for last years prayer leaves, and held each and every prayer in my heart as I read it. The prayers generally fall into categories, but they don’t have to, we can all pray for anything. The most popular thing to pray for is for the health of a loved one, or the repose of somebody passed away. One thing that struck me in this year’s prayers was that there were several about pregnancy, and wanting to have children. There were no names mentioned, and I don’t know any of those who wrote those prayers, but they struck me as a reminder that life is precious, both at the beginning and at the end. Be assured that I did pray for you all, and hope that your prayers were and still are answered. 

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Please do keep using these prayer trees, and if you haven’t prayed before, just walk into one of our churches, write a prayer, hang it on the twisted willow, and be assured that God has heard your request. When anybody says ‘AMEN’ to a prayer, it means ‘I agree’. So when anybody reads a prayer on the prayer tree, whether any names are there or not, the person reads it and echoes an agreement for that prayer to be answered. This also means that anybody can read, agree, and echo a prayer that you write, turning one prayer into several. If you don’t want to put a prayer in a church, I also run a ‘say one for me’ campaign, where anybody can email me directly with a prayer request, and I’ll add it to my list. 

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It doesn’t matter where you pray; some find the sense of peace in an ancient church helps, others pray at home when they wake up or go to bed. I also know several people who pray whilst they are driving, but please don’t close your eyes when doing this! 

Good Friday is the end of March, a time when Christians remember that the Son of God, Jesus Christ, died on the cross for our sins, a good reminder that we all need forgiveness at times. This enables us to be at peace with God and put our past behind us. On Easter Sunday we celebrate that Jesus rose from the dead to show us that there is life after death, and there is nothing humans can do to interfere with that. That is reassuring when we approach the end of our lives, or when we are at war or in any kind of danger.

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Rev Chris

 

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