Sermons & Talks

This term in Zone2, we are looking at prayer and in particular how this is a simple conversation between us and God, our Father. What a humbling, wonderful and joyous thing that each one of us is able to hear directly from, and talk to, the God of the universe! How can we learn to better engage in this conversation?

Rev Nicky Gumbel, author of ‘Bible in One Year’, writes:

Things happen to us. So much of life is simply the set of circumstances we find ourselves in. For example, our parents, our genetic design, the weather, much of our education and our government are all things that we experience as ‘happening to us’. In Greek grammar, these things are expressed in what we call the ‘passive voice’. However, we also make things happen. When I initiate an action and do something, this is expressed in the ‘active voice’.

But Greek grammar also has a third voice – the ‘middle voice’. This is neither wholly active nor wholly passive. When I use the middle voice, I am participating in the results of an action. Christian prayer is spoken in the middle voice. It cannot be in the active voice because it is not an action I control, as in the ritualistic pagan prayers where the gods do our bidding. Prayer is not in the passive voice either, in which I’m at the mercy of the will of gods and goddesses. In Christian prayer, as Eugene Peterson puts it, ‘I enter into an action begun by another, my creating and saving Lord, and find myself participating in the results of his [gracious] action.’

In one sense, the whole of the Christian life is prayer. We welcome God’s gracious hand in our lives, and we participate in what he is doing in the world. God involves you in his plans. Of course, he could do it all on his own, but he chooses to involve you. He gives you freedom, yet he remains in control.

Richard Abbott, a member of our Zone2 Leadership Team, writes:

‘Prayer will always have an element of mystery. However, we often make it too complex and the prayer often conjures up all kinds of images from children saying prayers before bedtime to chanting monks. It is easy to forget that prayer is simply a conversation between God and people, either as individuals or corporately. In Zone 2 this term, we want to get to the heart of what prayer is.

Prayer, like any conversation, is two way, so we will start the series by asking how we can listen to God and how God speaks to us. We will then go on to look at some examples of prayer from the Bible and from people such as St Francis of Assisi. There will also be an opportunity in one of our services for people to share their experiences of prayer. In June we will have our week of prayer, which will provide an opportunity to join the with the whole parish in a week of corporate prayer.’