Week of Prayer for Christian Unity January 2020

This year Holy Trinity Church hosted both the Joint Sunday Service and the Wednesday lunchtime meeting. The other lunchtime meetings were hosted by the Baptists, Methodists and Catholics as well as our own Glenorchy URC.

The material published nationally was based on Acts 27 and 28, which is the story of Paul’s sea voyage as a captive, his shipwreck and the way that the people of Malta welcomed the large number of survivors washed up with Paul on their shores. They showed “Unusual Kindness” as one translation says.

Three of the six meetings made good use of this material, while the others, two of whom did briefly mention “Unusual Kindness” in their prayers, put emphasis on presenting their denomination’s traditional worship style to their visitors.

All the churches made their visitors very welcome for the “soup and bread” lunch (some with extra items). The warmth of the soup and the hospitality was needed in the January weather. It was good that there was plenty of conversation between new and old friends. Numbers attending at the five churches varied between 20 and 40. It would be good to see more than one or two faces from Glenorchy at these meetings. These important meetings are advertised widely among the town’s churches and we hope more will support them in future years.

Peter Johnstone