Readings and Prayers for January 3rd 2021

Woodfield Team prayer. God our Father, you long to draw all people into your love; increase in number your church   throughout the Woodfield Team, deepen us as followers and learners of Christ and give us courage to share the good news of your kingdom. We pray this in the power of your Spirit, to the glory of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

  A service of Morning Prayer can be accessed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y84KODu7iJE&feature=youtu.be and of Communion here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoSq89z9rLc&feature=youtu.be   

 There is material for families and children at https://www.facebook.com/woodfieldchurcheschildrenswork/

 The Collect for the 2^nd Sunday of Christmas

God our Father, in love you sent your Son

that the world may have life:

lead us to seek him among the outcast

and to find him in those in need,

for Jesus Christ’s sake. Amen

Gospel: John 1:1-18

In the beginning was the one who is called the Word. The Word was with God and was truly God.² From the very beginning the Word was with God. ³ And with this Word, God created all things. Nothing was made without the Word. Everything that was created received its life from him, and his life gave light to everyone.⁵ The light keeps shining in the dark, and darkness has never put it out.
⁶ God sent a man named John, who came to tell about the light and to lead all people to have faith.⁸ John wasn’t that light. He came only to tell about the light.⁹ The true light that shines on everyone was coming into the world.¹⁰ The Word was in the world, but no one knew him, though God had made the world with his Word.¹¹ He came into his own world, but his own nation did not welcome him.¹² Yet some people accepted him and put their faith in him. So he gave them the right to be the children of God. ¹³ They were not God’s children by nature or because of any human desires. God himself was the one who made them his children.

¹⁴ The Word became a human being and lived here with us. We saw his true glory, the glory of the only Son of the Father. From him all the kindness and all the truth of God have come down to us.¹⁵ John spoke about him and shouted, “This is the one I told you would come! He is greater than I am, because he was alive before I was born.”¹⁶ Because of all that the Son is, we have been given one blessing after another. ¹⁷ The Law was given by Moses, but Jesus Christ brought us undeserved kindness and truth. ¹⁸ No one has ever seen God. The only Son, who is truly God and is closest to the Father, has shown us what God is like.

A suggestion: this passage is so very familiar that it may be hard to see something new for you in it but read it slowly. Ask God to show you something new this reading. Read it slowly twice through and see what word or phrase jumps out at you. Talk to God about that word or phrase and ask him to take you deeper with it

Prayers for today:

• For us to rejoice in our adoption as God’s children and to let that hold us this New Year
• That we know we are held in God’s bigger story
• For our politicians faced with impossible decisions
• For all working in hospitals and care homes and essential services
• For the Brexit result and its outworking into everyday life
• For those countries where there is huge poverty and lack of resources to deal with everyday life, let alone a pandemic
• For generosity in our support of charities
• For those we know who are ill or bereaved
• For the church and for all leaders in churches across the world