Welcome to St Leonards Church Brighton
We continue to be an open, diverse, welcoming church, in this time of Covid19. Come, join us on line.
We continue to meet in different ways and different places.
Share with us through….
- Video Worship Services
- Daily Reflections
- Children/Family online. (click for children/families)
- A variety of online studies, events and zooms
Meet me in the middle of the air - Paul Kelly
Great is Thy faihfulness
A mighty fortress is our God
Beauty for brokenness
Prayer for those affected by coronavirus in Australia and the World
Merciful Father, our loving God in Heaven,
when coronavirus is spreading in many countries in this world,
when the peoples of those nations are suffering unimaginable hurt,
we pray that you will bring extraordinary healing,
your presence be among these suffering people today.
Your eternal love and compassion will embrace
every affected family, and every broken heart!
We pray that
God will give wisdom and strength to our leaders,
and leaders of affected nations;
Give peace to the key organisations responding in every city,
Let them have enough wisdom and courage
to bear the burden during this crisis!
We pray that
God’s protection and mercy
be upon all medical staff in the frontline,
sustain them with peace,
give them strength and firm belief to overcome this virus!
We pray that
the Spirit of God
will drive this coronavirus out of humanity,
stop the spread of suffering and isolation in this world,
and bring health and return peace to Australia,
And all people on earth!
We give thanks for the social services of our churches,
working together in this healing ministry.
May Christian witness and hope
channel courage and goodwill in the community
for the common good of renewal!
We pray for students unable to return to school,
families in self-isolation,
the elderly at home and in our aged care facilities
our staff and volunteers serving communities,
We also pray for ourselves…
May your wisdom and understanding be present in this land.
May your compassion bring together families that are kept apart.
We also pray for the Spirit of life and compassion
unite people, care for each other,
share the same destiny and seek the same healing.
Lord hear us, hear our prayers.
O Crucified yet Risen Lord,
you have experienced human suffering and death,
yet you have shown us,
nothing could separate us from God’s love.
May your risen life be a blessing to all peoples,
as we become your compassion and love for others in this world.
In this season of Lent, teach us once again
Love will overcome suffering.
In the name of Christ, we pray,
Amen.
Written by Rev Enshuo Zhu, Rev Dr Ji Zhang; Translated by Rev Dr Ji Zhang
On behalf of Chinese National Conference of Uniting Church in Australia
为澳洲和世界疫情祷告
满有怜悯和慈爱的天父，
当肺炎病毒肆虐世界大地的时候，
当各国人民在遭受痛苦和悲伤的时候，
求你格外垂怜医治他们，
求你降临在受苦的人群之中。
让你无限的爱和怜悯
怀抱每个受伤的家庭和绝望的心灵！
祈求主赐智慧和力量给澳大利亚的领导人，
以及有疫情的各国领导人，
每个城市的管理者，
使他们有足够的智慧和勇气承担艰困时期的责任！
也求主保守和怜悯所有投入一线战斗的医务人员，
保守他们平安，加添他们力量和信心战胜疫情！
祈求主斥责新冠肺炎病毒
早日远离人们，
使疫情的蔓延在世上得以制止，
使澳洲人民，
世界各大洲的人口，
重新过上健康、平安的生活！
我们为澳大利亚联合教会献上感恩，
教会的社会服务机构同舟共济，
支持弱势群体，参与医治的使命。
祈求主内的见证能给社会注入力量和赐福，
为共同的复兴而努力。
我们为那些无法返校的学生祷告，
为在家自我检疫的家庭祷告，
为居家老人和养老机构的工作人员祷告，
为我们自己祷告…
祈求主赐智慧和理解给澳洲社会，
让病魔和恐惧远离我们，
让家庭重新团圆，
让各个教会和社会团体能互相照顾，
众志成城，
原主聆听我们的祈求需求。
受难而复活的主，
祢已经体会了苦难和死亡，
而祢也展现了
任何一切都不能把我们与祢的爱分离，
愿祢复活的生命成为万民的祝福，
让我们成为祢在世上的仁慈和希望。
再次教诲我们，有爱就会赢。
奉耶稣基督的名，
阿们！
写作：朱恩硕牧师、张骥牧师，翻译：张骥牧师
联合教会华联会
Often we find our faith is strong when grounded in regular practices and structure that attending church brings. But when we can’t meet together for worship and service, where does our faith come from? It becomes something we have to intentionally carve time out for, and if we are honest, our faith should be something we invest in not just on Sundays and when at church activities, but everyday. Read on! – Nicole
Faith in a time of virus – daily prayer 65
Reflection: The Cootamundra, again, in the church’s playground. The tree is now a radiating mass of lemony-gold droplets, beaming against the milky blue of a cloudless winter’s day. From budding promise (prayer 50) to teeming light in troubled times.
Prayer:
Living with dissonance, God, is difficult.
People in parts of our city are entering a tough lockdown; while we look out for more freedom.
Divides are worked out on maps and with postcode numbers; we watch on, in the lottery of our times.
It feels it is no longer the case that we’re all in this together. ***
And this golden tree! It thrills the eye yet, it floods its wonder in winter! on a sun-filled morning.
Help us to hold our discords together with a love as abundant as the tree in blossom:
To find justice that is ‘rightwising’ our attitudes, upholding our compassion, and finding unity in you, across borders drawn on maps – but not inked unseen boundaries of our hearts and in our minds.
With you, God, we are all in this, together.
Amen.
11.01 am 23 June 2020 Wolseley Grove Brighton Beach
Faith in a time of virus – daily prayer 63
Reflection: An iron-railing bar on a freezing morning does not invite touching. Custard sunlight is glancing across the fresh grass as if to warm the surface of everything. This fence is hopeless: it cannot keep anything in or out. The light shines through, over and under. It is simply a boundary of the mind – creating a suspicion; the reality is with the light.
Prayer: God – Of Light….You penetrate everything – that’s your wisdom and though we have our shadows we have no place to hide – no boundaries to keep – from You.
God – Of Light….Help us know your saturation of light and love.
Even the cold, fenced-off areas that can keep nothing in or out from You.
Postcodes, local government areas, suburbs are named in concern of virus outbreaks.
More boundaries and suspicions – hiding our hope that we are safe; far from them if not from You.
God – Of Light…..Help us to know how the flood of life that is Love is not bound. Keep us from fencing-off compassion to our own need.
Instead, radiate that glancing warmth through, over and under them and us, from You.
Amen.
8.08 am 08 June 2020 Dendy Street East Brighton
Faith in a time of virus – daily prayer 62
Reflection: as fallen gumnuts glow in the low afternoon sun, stone, moss and mortar connive to craft almost an almost impossible cross and resurrection image on top of a rough wall. Shapes of faith retained in rock as threat, lockdowns and barriers rise, again.
Prayer:
Jesus, You said the very stones themselves would shout “Hosanna”
If they were forced shut.
Could a rock in an old fence shout life?
Pillowed by late afternoon sunlight a kind of rough crucified something in mortar seems to be pushing through stone.
Maybe? And old gumnuts gather around, their work on the streets now done.
Odd how we find the stuff of faith, even if it’s not really there.
Or is it?
In latter hours of restriction when we discover we’re not done, yet help us to find our Hosanna’s – barriers to the heart forced open shouting love and praise, still.
That life’s joy, Jesus, is still ‘round us; our work far from done.
Amen.
3.36 pm 23 June 2020 New Street Brighton Beach
Faith in a time of virus – daily prayer 61
Reflection: The sun is not on its way back, but planet Earth on its tilted cycle is; from 7.41am today, tipping back from Cancer to Capricorn. Those two are 5,185.9km apart. A big slope to roll around on a trip we take daily as passengers on our planet in the cosmos.
Prayer:
Lines criss-cross our roads and skies transporting our lives on superhighways of strung wire, BHP steel and bitumen marked with iridescent marks, for our safety.
These are for the small journeys of our daily living.
Cosmic Christ, Godly Word before lines of script;
creations’ communication before our speaking, track with us we pray *** … up the seams and creases of our days that in the awe of it all we may be struck with the Love within the awe of it all, even facing the setbacks and upticks of a virus that unbalances our days,
and too, on this day when the world tilts and the light is coming back without the need for our ever-present iridescent markings to guide it, or our strung wires to safely to hold it all in place
– if you should forget the passengers on your creation.
Amen.
7.41 am the moment of the winter solstice 21 June 2020 South Road Brighton Beach
Faith in a time of virus – daily prayer 60
Reflection: New angles on the day as we emerge from life underground – even if only passing under the rail line to get from the station to the footpath. To ‘dip and re-emerge’ is part of our human pattern. Observing what the other-side up looks like is always an adventure.
Prayer: God – present both known and unobserved in our trails of life – we give you our dips and re-emergences.
Life takes its course through its own ups and downs.
Come with us seeking spirit.
In these new days would it be that our search for the familiar not bury the lessons of the new or the old, freshly rediscovered not be interred again neglected and infected by a sanitised tomorrow.
God of the journey, from the underground to the overpass, we step together into the adventure of what a life might or could be.
Amen.
1.42pm 09 June 2020 pedestrian underpass Brighton Beach Station & South Road Brighton Beach
Faith in a time of virus – daily prayer 59
Reflection: Sunrise by dewdrops, early winter morning. The day’s re-creation through the lens of dewdrops on a steel rail enables us to see the miracle of the new birth of another day differently. Pristine and clear, a day arrives for us to live in.
Prayer:
God within a dewdrop, we see a new day arrive in all its simplicity
and complexity.
When big things are happening to us and all around our world, who cares about a dewdrop?
Despite our distractions here is complexity: gravity is at work on this tiny bubble, and physics, too;
elements of life are within -oxygen, hydrogen, bacteria –
stuff of life is squeezed in alongside you in that bubble, and so connected to the whole created order in its intricacy.
Give us a mind, God, for the small things. That we might know the large things, too.
Amen.
7.42 am 08 June – Dendy Park Oval, East Brighton