WOMEN’S WORLD DAY OF PRAYER
A gift from women for everyone
Friday, 6th March, 2015 at 10am
Cookham Rise Methodist Church
Women’s World Day of Prayer is an international, inter-church, organisation which enables us to hear the voices of women, from a different part of the world each year, expressing their hopes and concerns and bringing them before the rest of the world in prayer.
On Friday, 6th March an estimated 3 million people, in over 170 countries, will gather to observe the day of prayer, using an order of service written by Christian women from The Bahamas and translated into over 1,000 different languages and dialects. In the British Isles alone over 5,000 services will be held. The day will begin when the sun rises over the island of Samoa, and continue until it sets off the coast of American Samoa some 35 hours later.
The theme of the service is taken from St John’s Gospel, chapter 13 verses 1-17, ‘Jesus said to them: "Do you know what I have done to you?"’ and it challenges us to demonstrate the same radical, unconditional love for others that Jesus showed when he washed the feet of his disciples.
The Bahamas consists of over 700 islands, scattered over 100,000 square miles in the Atlantic Ocean, only a small proportion of which are inhabited. It refers to itself as a ‘family of islands’ and in the service the needs of the smallest islands are given as much prominence as those of the larger ones.
Each year, a committee comprising members from each of the four churches in Cookham – Holy Trinity, St. John the Baptist, Cookham Rise Methodist Church and St. Elizabeth’s Catholic Church – convenes to organise the annual service which is held in each of the churches quadrennially.
This year our speaker will be Cookham Dean resident and member of St. John the Baptist congregation, Richard Poad. Richard, who is half-Bahamian, spent his early years in The Bahamas and continues to visit annually.
Everyone is welcome to attend the service, men, women and children – people of all ages. The service will be followed by coffee and an opportunity to chat.
If you are interested in learning more about Women’s World Day of Prayer, visit www.wwdp.org.uk.
