sustain:if:able kiwi

raincoat prayers

The lectionary texts for Sunday included Mark 4:35-41 and Psalm 107:1-3; 23-32. Both texts introduce God as present and active in the storm. So in preparing for Sunday, folk were contacted during the week, asking them to bring a raincoat to church. This built a little bit of curiosity. During the sermon, I reflected on God as present during storms. I began with a story of when I was caught in a hailstorm, which enabled me to put on my raincoat, and so preach with my raincoat on. All helping to make the sermon more memorable.

As the sermon concluded, I invited a prayerful response, in relation to the raincoat that people had been invited to bring (while playing Tracey Chapman’s “I used to be a sailor,” from her Matters of the Heart album).

• You could use the prayerful time to think about your own journey of following God. What does it mean for you to keep adventuring with God – to keep saying yes to the storms of life? As a way of saying yes you could put on the raincoat you were asked to bring.
• Or you might use the raincoat to pray for someone you know who is going through a storm – perhaps a hard situation at work or a difficult relationship – that they would have the courage to keep finding the God of peace in the storm. Again, you could also put on the raincoat you were asked to bring, as a way of praying for them.

It was a tactile way to pray, first in the bringing into church of something from everyday life, second in the physical actions of putting on the raincoat, third in the memories that were created, which might well be recalled as the raincoat is used in the future.