As the deer pants for the water - so my soul longs after You - Martin Nystrom - 1

As the deer pants for streams of water,
so my soul pants for you, O God.
My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
Psalm 42:1-2a

Thirsty for God?

Groan, Groan, And Groan Some More! - Worship activity

Activity During Morning Worship for everyone including children!
Ascension Sunday
(Based On Idea By Sue Relf)

Ask children to come out and stand in a line facing the congregation

Ask them to moan and groan as if feeling very cold - are they convincing?
as if feeling hungry - give them sympathy!
as if having a tummy ache - all girls together to groan
as if being bored - all boys together to groan

When do adults groan?...
when hearing a bad joke
when listening to a politician speak
when at a pantomime
when running in a marathon

We usually moan and groan when things are bad or difficult,
when as we said earlier we are in pain or suffering.

Romans 8:22 says We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time

The Bible says that not only the world around us is decaying physically but spiritually it is also infected with sin.

When we are in any kind of trouble we have two choices, either we do something about it or we don't! As you listen to the story of how Jesus, after his resurrection, was taken up to heaven notice how the disciples go about their predicament - having to live without living with Jesus anymore.

In Acts 1:11 we see a scene where the disciples are told off by angels for doing something daft...they stood looking at the sky trying to see Jesus! In verses 12 and 13 they do something more sensible, they are recorded as going back to Jerusalem and praying together as Jesus had asked to do anyway.

When you face a dilemma, a difficult task, don't stand around hoping it will all get sorted but make sure you pray about it.

John will speak to us more about it later but for now, lets remain firm in the faith for one day Jesus will come back for us and then he will turn our tragedies into triumphs, our poverty into riches, our pain into glory, our defeat into victory. We who love Jesus will be reunited with him and will be safe and secure for ever.

The Healing Congregation - The Bible Reading

Introducing The Bible Reading: James 5:1-20
(comments based on the Life Application Bible)

One of the purposes of this book - James - is to teach right Christian behaviour. James, who was the brother of Jesus, is by now a leader in the Jerusalem church, is writing to the first century Jewish Christians.

With energetic style and crisp, well chosen words, James confronts the conflict head on, that we can profess to trust God and to be his people, yet we still cling tightly to the world and its values.

At times we might possess all the right answers but contradict the gospel with our lives. James urges us to talk the Christian faith without forgetting to live it. In these verses we will certainly hear the point that, the proof of the reality of our faith, is a changed life.

This book has been described as a how-to book on Christian living and it is full of confrontation, challenge and commitment. Bible passages such as this one are very important and helpful at a time when being a Christian is very hard. We are persecuted in ways we might not realize.

For example into our personal life we might bring our rights, our wanting things quickly...to our fellowship we might bring pressure from health and safety so we end up having no outings which used to build fellowship...into our community life we might take help only to those who only help themselves... the list goes on.

Before we know it our connection with God gets blurred and we might not even realize it because it is how the rest of the world lives. In chapters 1-4 James outlines some of the characteristics of the Christian life. We will join his writings in chapter 5 as he begins to talk about our responsibilities to God, to others and to our own church fellowship.