Opportunities Galore!
Things are beginning to hot up this week in the church office. We're planning quite a lot of activities over the next few weeks. And of course once again its my favourite week. You've guessed it "On the Street" has to be organised for Sunday. The theme this month is 'Dancing on the Street" it seemed good at the time some six month's ago, when planning out the themes. Well, no doubt we'll come up with something. I'll spare you the details on the blog.
May...
Continue Reading
This is a crucial time for the Church Without Walls idea, or movement as some are calling it. We need to keep our focus as we continue to plan the national CWW Event in 2008. Let's remember keep it simple, our core business is worship. We as the Church of Scotland are in the business of creating sustaining and developing worshipping communities. This is the whole essence of Article 3 of our Articles Declaratory with reference to "matters spiritual".
To do this...
This picture illustrates for me how Christmas and Easter are all part of the same wonderful redemption plan. The above cross started out as our Christmon tree. It's a great way of teaching the whole congregation about the links between Christmas and Easter, using a symbol that becomes alive with meaning. Easter is such a dynamic time of the year that when Easter Monday is over I'm ready to sleep for a week.
I've been away from my desk for a few days, trying to...
Despite the rain and the fact that I was shattered. It was up and on the road this morning to walk part of the West Highland Way. Inglston on Easter Sunday evening was still ringing in my ears as we made our way up to Crianlaroch and took a view of Glen Bogle.
When I say, Inglston, I'm talking about the Praise Evening entitled "Resurrection" that took place in Edinburgh last night. It was a remarkably good event. Very well attended. I would imagine there must have...
When we started out on this whole adventure of taking the message to the streets I never thought it would end up back here in Bo'ness. Yesterday was Good Friday, we took to the street with our Labyrinth and it was an amazing success just listen to how people in the streets of Bo'ness responded to the event. We were asking the question, 'Is Easter Fact or Fairytale?' 'Is Easter Fact or Fairytale?'
This will be the topic that I plan to speak about tomorrow in church....
This has been an interesting day. I passed from being a BBC conttributor, to being a pastor visiting a widow who just lost her husband last week, to sorting out contents for the Easter services in the midst of fielding at least 10 phone calls. Finally to end up experiencing a Passover Supper as a teaching experience. All in a days work.
The BBC interview regarding church attendance was a bit of a damp squib. The release of the hostages took up the headlines and...
A poll, conducted last year among people aged 16 and over, suggests that one in four UK adults attends church at least once a year.
REGULAR UK CHURCHGOERS
Northern Ireland: 45%
Scotland: 18%
England: 14%
Wales: 12%
Source: Tearfund
Tearfund said 53% of people identified themselves as Christian, compared with almost three-quarters who had in the last census in 2001.
But it said that its survey indicated that three million people who had stopped going to church,...