Prayer pointers was last updated in time for Sunday 5th April 2025.
This page offers prayer suggestions for personal use and for intercessions relating to the Benefice in our Sunday services. Don't feel obliged to use all of it!
Please pass on prayer requests to Stephen, via email. Please do not request prayers for the health or wellbeing of named individuals in this public forum.
Lent Reflections
Please continue to reflect in your prayers on Stephen's Ash Wednesday sermon. As rural churches, we enjoy above average levels of churchgoing per head, but the absolute numbers attending church in any given parish are very small. Many people, and most of those under retirement age, choose to attend Kendal or Penrith churches in preference to ours. Our Benefice population, of less than six thousand people, is about the same as the average parish in England, and yet we divide ourselves between 13 buildings rather than 1; into 8 PCCs rather than 1. Our burdens our multiplied and our resources are divided. Is this what God is calling us to be? How do we find new ways of being church, while preserving our distinctive and important quality of being the Body of Christ in every place?
This topic will be the subject of our Saturday morning workshop in May. Pray for good attendance and imaginative discussion, aimed at preserving what is special to us and exploring where God is doing a new thing.
Welcome to our new Curate
We give thanks for the service of welcome for the Revd Chris Smith on Saturday evening in Crosby Ravensworth. We pray for Chris' ministry among us, for the distinctive contribution he will bring, and we ask for the insight we need to give him a thorough training as he prepares for a post of responsibility of his own. We pray that he will live peacefully and joyfully in the Diocesan accommodation of Shap Vicarage.
Our schools
We give thanks for the Easter Experiences which Ruth has organised in Morland, Crosby Ravensworth and Shap this week. We pray for our schools, especially for their staff and pupils, that the Easter break might be refreshing after a busy term. Join with Ruth and Stephen in giving thanks for the extraordinary welcome that headteachers, staff and governors give us, and for the opportunities we have to serve the children of our communities.
In Crosby Ravensworth, the school will be marking Easter in church on Tuesday 22nd April. We pray for the success of that service.
We pray especially for Lowther and Bolton schools, where governors are seeking to recruit a new headteacher.
Ministry to children and young people
We pray for the interactive Easter trail that which Ruth has set up in Morland, Crosby Ravensworth and Shap. We pray that the young people and families who bring their phones and tablets to enjoy the augmented reality display will find it a helpful way of accessing the amazing story of Easter. We give thanks for the foresight which has given us internet connectivity in Morland and Crosby Ravensworth, while in Shap we give thanks for 5G data connections, a privilege available to very few across the County.
Youth groups
We give thanks for a wonderful term in Shap, Morland, Crosby Ravensworth/Maulds Meaburn and Bolton. We are particularly thankful for the small number of children who are able to attend more than one evening, and extend their friendship group across village boundaries. We pray for the success of our youth event on Holy Saturday at Crosby Ravensworth.
Online presence
We give thanks for the use we are able to make of our website, WhatsApp Community, Facebook Page and now YouTube Channel. Help us Lord to prosper this work and reach out beyond our congregations. In this most hazardous of human activities, keep us on a straight and narrow path. May our corner of the internet always be one that glorifies you.
Occasional offices
We give thanks for the opportunities afforded by the many baptisms, weddings, funerals, burials of ashes and memorials we are able to help with. We pray for the ministers who take these services, and all who are involved in making them a success. We ask God to guide us in service and in proclamation of the Good News at all these occasions.
Our administrator
We given thanks for the work of our deanery administrator, Joyce Keetley, as she prepares for retirement. We ask for God's support as we seek to recruit a replacement administrator to carry on Joyce's important ministry on our behalf.
Church buildings
Give thanks for the work to install areas of infra-red heating in St Patrick's, Bampton. Pray for other schemes to maintain, upgrade or install heating in our churches.
About prayer pointers ThePrayer pointers page was a suggestion made at one of our Saturday morning training sessions on 15th February 2025. Talking about leading interecessions, we identified the importance of praying, as a benefice, for all the different needs and activities of our communities, churches, PCCs and congregations. In order to do this effectively, we need to know what each other are doing.