One for all you Baptist ministers out there... A young minister up here is trying to locate a copy of Patterns and Prayers without success (there is one ludicrously priced second hand copy on Amazon, and I'm not about to part with mine as I use it quite a lot).  So, if you have a spare unawanted one lying around can you let me know and I'll gladly buy it from you and pass it on.

To be clear it is this one:

There has been so much sadness in the news this week, so much tragedy, and I'm still mulling over how I respond prayerfully to any of that in a way that moves beyond trite or knee jerk.  But I don't think it's wrong to inject a little humour; indeed I have a hunch it's actually a positive thing, so long as it is not insensitive in content or delivery .  So here's a cartoon I pinched from the web...

Now back to sermon prep after a few minutes of levity!

"Far from acting as a talisman for personal ends or a pretentiously "holy" way of sanctifying our selfish desires, prayer works only when human aspirations are sublimated to higher purposes.  In short, availing prayer always operates within the ambiance of submission to God's holy will and is tacitly prefaced by the phrase "if it is your will (...).  Hence to those who were querulously asking why their prayers were in vain (v3) James can truthfully reply that they have asked in the wrong spirit because their motives were alien to God's desire for peace and justice in his way.  Prayer is removed from being treated as a magic incarnation (...) or a patriotic slogan - a warning unheeded by "Christian" armies who launched crusades to exterminate infidels; who sang of wider and wider boundaries of their imperial domain; or who went into battle with "God with us" on their soldiers' belts."

Ralph P Martin, Word Biblical Commentary, James, Waco, Texas, 1988, p. 156

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