[This reflection by David Makanjuola was published in the weekly news bulletin of Horley Baptist Church, 31/May/2026]
You wake up in the morning to what I will call another ‘typical’ day. If you live in the UK, ‘typical’ would include looking at social media feeds, the news on television, or reading the newspapers, and this will often, very quickly, bombard you with things to make you feel despondent, sad, and sometimes angry at the state of things in the world.
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[A ‘Tuesday Challenge‘ originally prepared for the congregation of Horley Baptist Church during May 2026]
Sages, leave your contemplations [1]
During the current sermon series on Sunday mornings the congregation at HBC has been considering various types of prayer, including prayers of adoration, petition, intercession and, more recently, contemplation. The latter may be the remit of sages and hermits but, for us, pausing for contemplation brings its own challenges.
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[This reflection by Dennis Ginter was published in the weekly news bulletin of Horley Baptist Church, 24/May/2026]
Most of us have just enjoyed a beautiful cooked meal in the church hall, with our donations going towards the Beacon Project. And, as our leaders have stressed repeatedly, the Project is not primarily about the building – it’s about blessing our neighbours! That could be reworded to ‘outreach’ or ‘evangelism’.
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[A ‘Tuesday Challenge‘ originally prepared for the congregation of Horley Baptist Church during May 2026]
So their entreaty ascended fervently to heaven.
3 Maccabees 5:9 [NRSVA]
It is perhaps unusual for us to quote from the books of the Apocrypha but those words give us an appropriate context for our thoughts this week as we consider prayers of supplication.
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A Slower Kind of Prayer
[This reflection by Dazz Jones was published in the weekly news bulletin of Horley Baptist Church, 17/May/2026]
If you know me at all, you’ll know I’m usually on the go. I like moving, doing, fixing, planning – and if I’m honest, slowing down isn’t always my natural setting. Part of that is just personality, and part of it is tied up with my adult ADHD: my brain can feel like it’s running five tabs at once, and silence can feel … loud.
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[A ‘Tuesday Challenge‘ originally prepared for the congregation of Horley Baptist Church during May 2026]
Some went down to the sea in ships, doing business on the great waters; they saw the deeds of the Lord, his wondrous works in the deep.
Psalm 107 v23-24 [ESVUK]
Perhaps it seemed like a really cool idea, the reward for a lifetime of work and saving for a great adventure. What better than a cruise to the south Atlantic, to see the marvels of creation in their purest forms? However, the God who generated glaciers and propagated penguins was also responsible for rats.
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