Students

The devotions this week are written by myself and Matthew Crawford, the new student worker here at St Mary's. We hope they will help you to join us as we pray for new freshers and students to join our church.

The student years have the potential to be some of the most formative of our lives and it's my hope that St Mary's can be a place of home for many new students as they journey together in community. Over the next few weeks on Sunday's we'll be welcoming new students to London who are looking for a church.

We've had an incredible legacy of students who have come through this church who have gone on to serve our church and the wider church in amazing ways.

Today I'd love you to take a moment to bring to mind the incoming students and pray this prayer as a declaration over them.

Students!
Lift your eyes up!
May God bless your time at university.
We pray not that your faith would survive, but that it would thrive.
May you be challenged and changed. Strengthened and softened.
Brave enough to listen to new ideas and wise enough not to believe all of them!
Explore, adventure and retreat.
Ask good questions, listen well and spend quality time with the Maker.
Live life to the full and meet those who aren't sure what life's about at all.
Know where you've come from, be secure in who you are and embrace who you are becoming.
God has made you and is calling you to be you, no one else - so no need for any comparison.
In these years, God will reveal more of who he created you to be.
You have the power that raised Jesus from the dead living inside you.
You have discovered a great secret in Jesus.
Treasure it and be willing to share it.
Your university will never be the same again!
Lift your eyes up!
Amen!