Listen now

With shutdowns and restricted movement taking place due to Covid-19, we’re not going to be able to worship with one another in the way that we’re normally used to. We know it won’t be the same as our usual gathering together – but here are links to some on-line prayer and worship resources that you can access from home.

Services of daily prayer

These are available on the Church of England website. There are services of Daily Prayer in both contemporary and traditional forms and for all times of day. Once you get to the page, click the ‘More Options’ link to filter by date, time of day and form of service.

Also on the site you can read or hear a daily prayer. In addition, you can hear a daily hymn provided by the Royal School of Church Music. A new video is posted each day with music and lyrics.

Gill Barnett

Our ex-Curate (now Priest-In-Charge of Christ Church Healey, All Saints Hamer and St Ann’s Belfield) is live-streaming Evening Prayer at 5pm Mondays to Thursdays and Saturdays. Also Sunday mornings at 10am for Communion. You can find Gill on TwitchTv by following this link. It’s not recorded, so you’ll only see her when she’s there, if you know what I mean!

The BBC Radio 4 Daily Service & Sunday Service

Follow this link to get the BBC’s daily service. You can usually get to around 20 previous daily services too. Each are around 14 minutes long. For the BBC Sunday worship, click here. These are normally 38 minutes long.

A Sermon for every Sunday

This is a really great website, where, as the name suggests, you can see and hear Sermons for every Sunday. These are delivered by a number of different preachers, some of them very well known. These are normally around 15 minutes long and usually a manuscript is available for reading too. Often you can access sermons on the same texts from earlier years as well, so you get a wide variety of approach and tone.

You can find the Lectionary readings for any given Sunday by clicking here.

Jim Somerville, who runs the Sermon for every Sunday website, suggests lighting a candle, taking time to pray, going through the readings and reflecting on them, before listening to the sermon for that Sunday. Then finish with prayer. Oh, and don’t forget to blow the candle out when you’re done!

Our own sermon archive

Feel free to dip into the archives and read some reflections and sermons from our very own Ministry Team. At last count there were over 90 sermons there, enough to keep you going for 3 months if you ration yourself to one a day!

Ways to pray if you can’t get to church

This is a booklet with lots of good hints, tips and examples for praying at home: Prayers if you can’t get to church

Prayers about the outbreak

For our final on-line worship resource, if you want to pray specifically about the outbreak, this Church of England site gives you some models to work from. Here’s an example:

Keep us, good Lord

under the shadow of your mercy

in this time of uncertainty and distress.

Sustain and support the anxious and fearful,

and lift up all who are brought low;

that we may rejoice in your comfort

knowing that nothing can separate us from your love

in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen

Oh and don’t forget your Bible! It may be well thumbed or it may be on a shelf somewhere but it contains all you’ll ever need.

Please also take a look at Easter Us, by Walter Brueggemann. Written in 1994 but very appropriate for the times in which we are living now. Even after Easter.

Be safe – and look after yourselves. God bless.

Many thanks to Ben White for the photo on Unsplash