Greatly provoked this morning as I read this popular prayer/poem that is attributed to 16th century adventurer, Sir Francis Drake.

Have a read and see if you are willing to pray and “amen” the dangerous heart of these words:

Disturb us, O Lord,
When we are too pleased with ourselves,
When our dreams have come true
Because we dreamed too little,
When we arrived safely
Because we sailed too close to the shore.

Disturb us, O Lord,
When with the abundance of things we possess
We have lost our thirst for the waters of life;
Having fallen in love with life,
We have ceased to dream of eternity
And in our efforts to build a new earth,
We have allowed our vision of the new Heaven to dim.

Disturb us, O Lord,
To dare more boldly,
To venture on wilder seas,
Where storms will show Your mastery;
Where losing sight of land,
We shall find the stars.

We ask you to push back
The horizons of our hopes;
And to push back the future
In strength, courage, hope, and love.

This we ask in the name of our Captain,
Who is Jesus Christ.

Prayer of Francis Drake, 1577

O for a thousand tongues to sing
My great Redeemer’s praise,
The glories of my God and King,
The triumphs of His grace!
My gracious Master and my God,
Assist me to proclaim,
To spread through all the earth abroad
The honours of Thy name.

This morning as I sat at the piano for a short devotional time I picked up the hymn book and on turning a few pages in was once again drawn to read the following words of John Wesley as he lays out his Directions on Singing.

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Following on from a previous post about Authentic Worship, I recently watched this really helpful video short featuring Bob Kauflin of Sovereign Grace Ministries talking about and encouraging the use of our bodies in our worship as we respond to Christ.

How would you personally respond to the question that Bob posed to Mark Dever and then further extends to you?

Like many other households, over the last few months we have been caught up with the craziness that is “Angry Birds”.

This morning we were greeted with our young boys coming into our bedroom and Josiah saying “Angry Birds” and Gideon shouting “iPad” followed by lots of clapping! (iPad is only his 7th word – arghh a geek in the making !!!). So, out came the iPad and a few levels of Angry Birds were played together. Great fun!

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“They that pray in the family do well; they that pray and read the Scriptures do better; but they that pray, and read, and sing do best of all.” Matthew Henry

Mr Cow - Julia Plaut

With so many little ones being born and on the way at the Chapel, I just wanted to take a few words to recommend a resource that new and young families might want to use with their tots for times of family worship.

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