Protection from the storms of life.

We will be singing this song at the Islay Fellowship meeting this evening. It is a great encouragement when the storms of life break around you. A reminder to trust God to protect you from the storms and floods. Such promises resonate well with us at the moment, but like Hurricane Irene our storm is abating and the floods are falling. Thanks to all those that have been so encouraging these last few months. :)

What is Church all about... what is it meant to be?

A friend sent me this video and it says so much in so short a time. Take a moment to play it through a couple of times.

It reminds me that I am not called here to get people into church. I am called here as a minister to introduce people to Jesus Christ and encourage them to become disciples. That is how it has worked for two thousand years and it is still working.

It has always been so that there are those that laugh, some even oppose at considerable lengths, but the message goes on. That is the message that I will be giving and I hope to get more and more effective in that.

If you like the video and want to know more, give me a call or come along to the Islay Fellowship meetings at the Baptist Church, Bowmore, 7.30pm on Wednesday evenings.

It's been a long time..

It has been almost 3 months since I last added anything to the blog. It has been a difficult time. It's been as if my life has become polarised - on one side amazing things happening, on the other side very vindictive forces at work. An important series of meetings take place tomorrow that I hope will break that cycle of polarisation and allow us to get back on track.

Gwen and I were reading from 1 Corinthians and came across this;

1 Corinthians 16
After I go through Macedonia, I will come to you—for I will be going through Macedonia. Perhaps I will stay with you for a while, or even spend the winter, so that you can help me on my journey, wherever I go. For I do not want to see you now and make only a passing visit; I hope to spend some time with you, if the Lord permits. But I will stay on at Ephesus until Pentecost, because a great door for effective work has opened to me, and there are many who oppose me.

That about sums it up for us.

Puppets Training Weekend

Last weekend we had a training day at the Round Church led by our good friend Chris Watt from 'Out of the Box' in Inverness. All of the churches on Islay sponsored the visit which was endorsed by our Presbytery Youth Worker Jess Reynolds. The photo below just gives an idea of what happened on the Saturday but Chris also came along to three services on Sunday and was well received by young and old alike. It is clear that the proper use of puppets could be a usful communication aid in so many settings eg schools, Sunday Club, open air events and Sunday Services.

Next steps?

Buy some puppets,  get training, get script writing, and then go for it !

General Assembly 2011

The General Assembly was quite a disappointment but an invaluable experience. Convenors often did not answer questions, or at least I did not think they answered the question, and they seemed to just duck the good searching questions. One man stood up and asked for an amendment indicating moderators would be chosen on merit rather than familiarity. Perfectly valid I thought. He was called to order most aggressively by the moderator, when the man indicated that his concern was that 9 of the last 12 had all worked at 121. The poor guy was visibly shaken and overall I have left with the abiding impression that Edinburgh rules the committees and the assembly.


Listening to the same sex debate was also very helpful for me because I could see that this was not really about homosexuality. The revisionists (not liberals, more upbeat word, clever) time and again went to the notion that God made us in his image, God loves us and wants us to love others. All true but not the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Its Christianity Lite, the low calorie version with lots of artificial flavouring, the more marketable commodity for this age, no need for repentance and faith.... and sin.... duh, wots that?
The tradionalists (not evangelicals, more downbeat word, clever) responded graciously and accurately, reminding the assembly of the nature of fallen humanity and the gospel of repentance and faith based on Gods love shown to us in Jesus.

However, the vote went to the revisionists, so that sets me to thinking hard about my own future.

The good news (and I say this tongue in cheek) is that the Church expects us all to holds hand and rejoice in the fact that very soon we will have a range of gospels to suit every taste :)  Presumably when the congregations turn up for Sunday worship they will be able to select the 'good news for the day' they want to hear, then the preacher of choice will appear on a large screen streamed in live from some location, or be shown a sermon that we had conveniently 'prepared earlier'.

Thank God I had to come back early to bless the MV Finlaggan tomorrow,  followed by a busy rest of the week doing good old traditional parish ministry stuff.

Scottish Parliament Election on 5th May

Here's a couple of websites which you may find helpful for the up and coming election next week:

www.churchesvote.org a website backed by a wide spectrum of Scottish churches and
www.makethecrosscount2011.net/scotland  by CARE (Christian Action Reserach and Education)

Good Friday

More photos from Good Friday in Bowmore Square. Thanks Rae!
Click on the photos and they will pop up as larger images in a new window.