Our Minister

Revd Linda M Phillips

Telephone Number: 01252 544823
Email: linda.phillips@theinvernet.co.uk

Linda writes (taken from our November 2009 newsletter) ...

Dear Friends,

“If we knew how to listen to God, if we knew how to look around us,
our whole life would become a prayer. For it unfolds under God’s eyes,
and no part of it must be lived without being freely offered to him.
At first we communicate with God through words,
which maybe dispensed with later on.
Let us then………………… soon discard words,
…[but] the silent prayer which has moved beyond words
must always spring from everyday life,
for everyday life is the raw material of prayer.

This passage is taken from Michel Quoist’s book, ‘Prayers of Life’, (Logos Books 1966) and is part of the preface to the section entitled ‘All of life would become prayer’. We can meet with God anywhere, we don’t have to be in church, nor do we need ”religious” things or surroundings to enable us to think of God, or to pray. I don’t mean by this that worshipping with other Christians is not necessary or important, because it is, but we shouldn’t restrict our relationship with God to church services, nor should we need apparently religious objects or words to connect with God and the spiritual life.

I was reminded forcibly of this last Sunday when we had the Circuit Local Preachers’ Study Day, which focussed on various styles of worship, one of which was entitled “Reflective Worship”. As part of this the leader gave us various everyday objects to reflect on quietly, and encouraged us to let things about the object which we held lead us into prayer.

I was part of a group given a £10 note – very trusting of the leader! It was a fascinating experience – I recommend you try it. Hold a banknote in your hand, and allow what you see to suggest subjects for prayer, or lead you into reflection on God and your faith. For instance, every banknote has a unique number printed on it, no other note has that number – you and I are unique individuals, and God has created and knows each one of us. There is a promise on there – “I promise to pay the bearer on demand the sum of…..” – God has made promises to us that he will fulfil, he is trustworthy. If you hold the note up to the light, you can see a watermark, a picture of the Queen in fact, but that set me thinking about whether we let the light of God shine through us, so that people can meet Jesus in us. There is silver metallic strip woven through the banknote, to avoid forgery – mmm, have to think about that one! There is a picture of the Queen on the note, perhaps leading us into prayer for our nation and local community. On the reverse of the note is a picture of Charles Darwin – now that could set off all sorts of ideas and thinking about our origins, about the Bible, about the natural world and so on and so on. We can think also about where that note has been, all that it may have been used to buy, good things and bad, the power money has to encourage generosity of giving help to others, but also greed and selfishness and oppression of others.

You get the idea, I’m sure, and you can do it with all sorts of objects – the speaker on Sunday also used a key, and a postage stamp. Everyday life is the raw material of prayer, as Michel Quoist said in the quotation above. In that same book he also wrote “A prayer before a £5 note” in which he reflects particularly on what the money may have been used for, and ends by offering all to God, the good and the bad, with thanksgiving and repentance. I would add to that a prayer offering all of our lives to God, so that we might meet him every day, in all that we do, in all whom we encounter, and might seek to make our lives a means of God reaching out to all his children. Above all, may our lives, in every way, be the raw material out of which our prayers are made.

With Christian greetings,
Linda

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