The Vicar said the other day that St. James’s Church was blessed in that the members of the congregation felt real friendship and caring one to another. We are experiencing the strengthened faith of hopes, engendered by the vital mustard seed of initial faith, being realized in the growing prosperity, not only material wealth but of the living Spirit among us, and this in its turn is beginning to bring a true spirit of love between us. “Faith, Hope and Love, id the greatest of these is Love”.

The Prayer Circle has been in existence for a very long time. It consists of a group of people who are called to pray quietly in their own homes for those who ask for prayers to be said for them or their loved ones “in times of eat stress and need’.

The Circle seldom meets, but a meeting was called some little time ago to add to its members the entire membership roll of the group for Welcome and Contact, and to re-arrange communication methods. As soon as possible every member of the Circle will receive a communication plan and a copy will be displayed in church for guidance to the congregation as a whole. There are now 35 members in the Prayer Circle and room for everyone else who feels that this service is something they feel called upon to give. For instance, if you are elderly and feel that some of the other ways of service are beyond your physical strength, then your spiritual strength, garnered by years of experience in the faith, would be invaluable - the ideal of course is that the whole congregation should naturally become one great circle of prayer eventually.

We read that if we truly love someone our first concern should be to pray for them, but at the meeting Mr. Brunt electrified us by saying that he sometimes hesitated to ask for prayers for someone in church. Either the subject was unknown to many, or it was immediately assumed that they were in danger of death and if, shortly afterwards, or even at the moment, the subject was seen to be in church, the reaction could be “Who is that?” or “What’s the matter with so-and-so, why do they need our prayers, they seem all right” and all this conjecture the prayers could somehow be watered down and be ineffective through lack of understanding, or because fear blotted out faith and negative thought prevailed.

Of course we all need the prayers of others all the time, but very often we need them desperately. In an ideal situation it should be the accepted thing for one of us to be able to say “Listen, I’m worried about this, frightened out that, puzzled and in need of direction, will you pray for me that I be helped and guided?’. But we seldom do, and if we do it is only to one or two special friends. We go on bearing our burden alone instead of having it lightened by sharing and prayer.

Source: The Spire Magazine - 1973 October