Future Focus

We had a really good Roundchurch kirk session meeting last night. One of the clear things to emerge was our recognition that we cannot do everything, but what we choose to do we would like to do well. After 7 months here I think we are getting a fairly clear sense of our immediate priorities - these are (i) WORSHIP ie all that happens in church on a Sunday. We discussed having others preaching, choosing songs, leading prayers or doing readings. We discussed cleaning, teas and coffees, welcoming, sound desk and audio-visual. (ii) CHILDREN/YOUTH ie all that we do with our young people. We have moved our Sunday Club to the Baptist Church and it will now run after the morning service, rather than at the same time, and we will make much use of modern technology and communication methods. We hope this will engage our youngsters in a way that will encourage them to make it their own space.

 (iii) ALPHA COURSE. We will start this in January 2011 and we are hopeful that it will provide a space for growth amongst our existing congregation and also allow folk from around Bowmore to participate. These courses are a great way of stimulating discussion and creating safe spaces for people to express their faith. (iv) PASTORAL. We want to become more organised in how we deal with the pastoral issues in the church. Angela Stather is gifted in this area and already very well known after some years of pastoral ministry. She has agreed to head this up and we want two elders (or more) to work with her to develop a team that will allow us to care for folk in the community around us. I can move on to change our web site to reflect these emerging emphases, and the new face of the Roundchurch in Bowmore.

There is a lot to do of course and we don't pretend it will be easy! We have some suggestions for new elders and helpers and I will be following these up in due course. The immediate good news is that we have a new treasurer - Bob McNabb - and we are delighted to welcome him onto the team.

I have a meeting of the Kirk Session at St.Johns tomorrow and we are also getting ready to decide on our future focus there too..... I will let you know what happens :)