[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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[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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[A ‘Tuesday Challenge‘ originally prepared for the congregation of Horley Baptist Church during May 2026]
We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen.
Nicene Creed[1]
Do you ever thank God just for being God?
It is relatively easy to pray for certain blessings that we think we need, or even to give thanks for what we have received so far, but prayers of adoration seem to require a special effort. Our minds wander and our thoughts digress as we try to find words that describe a God who is beyond description.
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[This reflection by David Makanjuola was published in the weekly news bulletin of Horley Baptist Church, 19/Apr/2026]
‘Twas the time after Easter and all through the night, not a fishy was biting, not even a trout’. This is the story of what the disciples were doing after Easter. It must have been a confusing, if not mind-blowing time for them. So much had happened in such a short span of time. Peter decided to go back to something he was familiar with – fishing, and he took a few of the disciples with him. John, one of the disciples, tells the story in his gospel as follows;
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