Morning Worship at Horden Corps

Sunday 12 April 2026 at 10.30 am

Welcome & Introduction

There’s something deeply familiar about that locked room in John chapter 20. We know what it is to carry fear behind closed doors, to sit with questions that won’t easily settle, to wonder what comes next when life hasn’t turned out as we hoped. And it’s right there, in that space, that Jesus comes and stands among his friends, speaking those simple, life-giving words: “Peace be with you.” Not because everything is fixed, but because he is present.

As we gather for worship, we don’t have to pretend we’ve got it all together. Some of us may come with strong faith, others with quiet uncertainty, and some perhaps feeling a little like Thomas, wanting something real, something we can hold onto. Yet the good news is this: Jesus meets us where we are. He doesn’t turn away from doubt, he steps into it with grace.

And as First Letter of Peter reminds us, “Though you have not seen him, you love him… and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy.” That’s the invitation before us today, to move, gently and honestly, from doubt to faith, from fear to peace, from distance to encounter.

So, let’s come as we are, open our hearts, and make space for the risen Christ to meet us, speak to us, and lead us deeper into life with him.

As we come to sing ‘Christ Is Alive! Let Christians Sing’, we celebrate the living Christ who meets us not only in the past, but in the present. This song echoes the risen Jesus standing among his disciples in John 20:19–31, speaking peace into their fear, and calling them into new life. It also reflects the promise of Acts 2:17, “I will pour out my Spirit on all people,” reminding us that his life is still at work in the world today. So, let’s lift our voices with confidence, knowing that Christ is alive and present with us now.

Song 217 (TB 47/Truro)
Christ is alive! Let Christians sing

Video: Because He Lives (Gaz Rose)

Prayer

Living God, we come to you as we are, not as we think we should be. Some of us arrive with steady faith, others with questions that linger, and some with hearts that feel a little closed, like that locked room where your disciples once sat in fear. Yet we trust that you’re not distant from us. In Jesus, you step into our reality and speak peace, not as a shallow comfort, but as a deep, restoring gift.

Lord Jesus, you know what it is to be doubted, and you don’t turn away. You meet us with patience and grace, inviting us closer. So, we bring our uncertainties, our longings, and our quiet hopes into your presence now. Where fear has taken hold, breathe your peace. Where faith feels fragile, strengthen it. Where we feel unseen or unsure, remind us that you are near.

Holy Spirit, come and move among us. Open our hearts to recognise you, even when we cannot see clearly. Help us to trust that your life is at work within us, shaping in us that living hope spoken of in the First Letter of Peter, a hope that holds firm even amid life’s trials.

And as we worship, draw us gently from doubt into faith, from hesitation into trust, until, like Thomas, we find ourselves able to say with wonder and truth, “My Lord and my God.” We offer this time to you, with open hearts. Amen.

Offering & Announcements

Favourite Easter Song(s) that you didn’t sing last week on Easter Sunday.
An opportunity for you to choose and/or share a testimony. You’ll need a song book.

Modern Examples of Doubt to Faith

C. S. Lewis began as a firm atheist, convinced that belief in God was an illusion. Yet his love of literature, myth, and the deep human longing for meaning kept pressing in on him. Through long conversations with friends, especially J. R. R. Tolkien, he began to see that the story of Christ might be the “true myth”, a narrative that fulfilled the deepest patterns of human imagination while also being historically real. His conversion was gradual and reluctant, moving first to belief in God, and later to faith in Christ, but it reshaped not only his thinking, but his whole life and writing.

Lee Strobel approached Christianity from a very different angle. As an investigative journalist and atheist, he set out to examine the claims about Jesus with the intention of disproving them. Using the tools of legal inquiry, he interviewed scholars, examined historical documents, and tested the reliability of the Gospel accounts. What he found unsettled his assumptions. Instead of dismantling faith, his investigation led him towards it, and he eventually became a Christian, later sharing that journey in a way that resonates with many who need intellectual honesty alongside spiritual openness.

Alister McGrath grew up believing that science had rendered faith unnecessary. As a student deeply immersed in the natural sciences at Oxford, he held a confident atheism. Yet over time, he began to feel that atheism, while intellectually rigorous, didn’t fully account for the richness of human experience, especially questions of meaning, beauty, and moral value. Christianity, rather than opposing science, seemed to offer a deeper framework within which science could sit. His journey led him not only to personal faith, but to a vocation exploring the relationship between science and theology.

For Francis Collins, the turning point came not in a lecture hall, but in the quiet of medical practice. As a young doctor, he was struck by the simple, sincere faith of patients facing death, a faith he realised he could neither dismiss nor explain away. This led him to examine his own assumptions. Through reading, reflection, and a growing awareness of moral law and the beauty of the universe, he came to see belief in God as both rational and compelling. He later described his faith as enriching his scientific work, not diminishing it, seeing the exploration of DNA as a way of glimpsing the language of God.

Nicky Gumbel experienced faith as something he initially resisted or ignored. As a student, he encountered Christianity through a friend who invited him to church. What struck him wasn’t argument, but the sense that faith might actually be real and transformative. Over time, through teaching, community, and personal experience, his scepticism gave way to belief. His later work with the Alpha course reflects that same journey, creating a space where people can bring questions, doubts, and curiosity without pressure, trusting that faith often grows best in an atmosphere of honesty and welcome.

Bible Reading: John 20:19–31

Singing Spot (John)

Bible Reading: 1 Peter 1:3–9

Piano Spot (Trevor)

Bible Message: From Doubt to Faith

There’s something deeply human about that locked room in John 20:19–31. You can almost feel the air in it, heavy with fear, confusion, and the quiet grief of shattered hopes. These were people who’d given everything to follow Jesus, and now they didn’t know what came next. The doors are shut, not just against the outside world, but against uncertainty itself. And then, without warning, Jesus stands among them and says, “Peace be with you.” Not small talk, not a casual greeting, but a gift, something spoken into their very core. “Peace be with you” becomes the beginning of their re-creation.

That’s often how he comes, not when everything is resolved, but right in the middle of the mess. He doesn’t wait for the disciples to get their courage back, or for their faith to tidy itself up. He steps into their fear. He speaks into their anxiety. He shows them his wounds, not to prove a point, but to reassure them that the crucified one is the risen one, that suffering hasn’t had the final word. And slowly, something shifts in the room. Fear begins to loosen its grip. Hope, fragile at first, starts to breathe again.

Then there’s Thomas. Poor Thomas, often remembered only for his doubt, but really, he’s one of the most honest people in the whole story. He wasn’t there that first evening, and when the others tell him what they’ve seen, he just can’t take it on trust. “Unless I see… unless I touch… I won’t believe.” It’s not defiance, it’s longing. He wants what they’ve experienced. He wants certainty, something solid to hold onto in a world that’s just fallen apart.

And what’s beautiful is that when Jesus comes again, he doesn’t bypass Thomas. He doesn’t rebuke him or shame him. He meets him exactly where he is. “Put your finger here; see my hands.” It’s an invitation, not a demand. And somewhere in that moment, Thomas moves from doubt to worship: “My Lord and my God!” It’s one of the clearest declarations of faith in the whole Gospel, and it comes from the one who struggled most.

Yet Jesus gently widens the horizon. “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” He’s not diminishing Thomas; he’s making room for everyone who will come after, people who won’t have the chance to stand in that room, to see those wounds with their own eyes. People like Peter’s readers, and people like us.

Because when you turn to 1 Peter 1:3–9, you find a community living that very reality. They’ve never seen Jesus, not in the way the disciples did. Their faith doesn’t rest on physical sight, but on something deeper, something that’s been formed in them through the Spirit. And their lives aren’t easy. They’re scattered, under pressure, facing misunderstanding and hardship. Faith, for them, isn’t comfortable, it’s costly.

And yet Peter writes with this astonishing confidence: “Though you have not seen him, you love him.” Just pause there. That’s remarkable. Love without sight. Relationship without physical presence. “And even though you don’t see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy.” Not because life is simple, but because something deeper is at work within them.

Peter calls it a “living hope.” Not wishful thinking, not vague optimism, but something alive, rooted in the resurrection of Jesus. The same risen Lord who stood in that locked room is now present with them, unseen but real, sustaining them through everything they face. Their faith is being tested, he says, like gold in fire, not to destroy it, but to refine it, to make it stronger, more resilient, more true.

And this is where these two voices, John and Peter, begin to echo each other. The journey from fear to peace in that locked room becomes the lived experience of believers scattered across the world. Thomas’s movement from doubt to trust becomes the pattern for a community learning to hold onto Jesus without seeing him. The blessing spoken by Jesus, “Blessed are those who have not seen,” finds its fulfilment in people who are loving, trusting, and rejoicing in him, even in the dark.

Because faith, in the end, isn’t about having all the answers. It’s not the absence of questions or the elimination of doubt. It’s the courage to bring those questions into the presence of Jesus, to stand honestly before him, as Thomas did, and to stay there long enough for grace to meet us.

And hope, the kind Peter speaks about, isn’t fragile. It doesn’t collapse at the first sign of difficulty. It’s been through fire. It’s learned to breathe in hard places. It’s anchored not in circumstances, but in the risen Christ himself.

So maybe the invitation for us is simple, but not easy. To notice the locked rooms in our own lives, the places where fear has closed the door. To hear again the quiet, steady voice of Jesus speaking peace into those spaces. To bring our doubts, not hide them. To trust that we are not second-class believers because we haven’t seen. In fact, we are part of that very blessing he spoke.

And somewhere along the way, perhaps quietly, almost unnoticed, we find it happening, that strange, resilient joy Peter describes. Not loud, not superficial, but deep and steady. A joy that doesn’t deny the reality of suffering but somehow coexists with it. A joy that comes from knowing that the risen Jesus is still present, still speaking peace, still holding us in a story that began on that first Easter evening and continues, even now, in us.

Video: Resurrection (Rob Bell)

As we come to sing ‘Be Still, for the Presence of the Lord’, we’re invited to slow down and become aware that God is already here among us. The song echoes Psalm 46:10, “Be still, and know that I am God,” a gentle call to lay aside our striving and rest in his presence. It also resonates with Exodus 6:1–6, where God speaks to his people in their struggle, “I am the Lord… I will bring you out… I will redeem you.” Amid noise, questions, and even doubt, he remains faithful and near. So, let’s quieten our hearts and receive his peace as we worship.

Song 353 (TB 566/Be still, for the presence of the Lord)
Be still, for the presence of the Lord

Prayer for Reflection and Response

Lord Jesus, we’ve heard again the story of that locked room in the Gospel of John, and we recognise ourselves within it. We’ve known fear, uncertainty, and moments where faith has felt just out of reach. Yet we thank you that you don’t wait for us to be certain before you come to us. You step into our lives as they are, speaking peace into the places we’d rather keep closed.

We bring to you now our doubts, not as something to hide, but as something to offer. Like Thomas, we long for something real, something steady enough to hold onto. Meet us, we pray, in that honesty. Where our faith feels fragile, strengthen it. Where our questions feel heavy, hold them with us. And where we’ve begun to glimpse you again, deepen that recognition into trust.

Help us to live as people shaped by that “living hope” we hear of in the First Letter of Peter, a hope that doesn’t deny the struggles of life, but carries us through them. Form in us that quiet, resilient joy that comes from knowing you are present, even when unseen.

And so, send us out, not with all the answers, but with hearts open to you, ready to walk by faith, trusting that you are with us in every step. Amen.

As we come to sing Thine Is the Glory, we step into the joy and triumph of the resurrection. This song echoes the Easter story found in the Gospels, where the stone is rolled away and the risen Jesus meets his followers, alive and victorious. It reflects the words of 1 Corinthians 15:57, “Thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ,” reminding us that death and despair don’t have the final word. So, let’s lift our voices with confidence and joy, celebrating the risen Christ who brings life, hope, and victory to us all.

Song 276 (TB 746/Maccabeus)
Thine is the glory

Benediction

May the peace of the risen Christ guard your hearts and your minds, steadying you in every uncertainty; may his gentle presence meet you in your questions, drawing you from doubt into a deeper, living faith. And as you go from this place, may you know that you are never alone, the one who stood among his disciples still walks with you, still speaks peace over you, still holds you in grace.

May the hope spoken of in the First Letter of Peter take root within you, living and active, sustaining you through all that lies ahead. And may the blessing of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, rest upon you, surround you, and remain with you always. Amen.