Amazing!

Amazing that after my last post saying "will catch up with Shettleston New folks before long" AND yesterday I spotted two of those special friends in the congregation @ St Enoch's. It was such a joy to see "a weil kent face" and to catch up with news after the service over coffee. Thank you God!

This week I have chosen not to go to an evening meeting, since a colleague reminded me that it's the Interim Moderator's role to oversee such things as LCR's ( local church reviews, which occur every five years, and used to have the awful title of "quinquennials."   (Why does the C of S still have a legal Latin type profile in some of its language? An example of this is Benediction.  It's, what I call, Blessing.

Another meeting this month has the leader of Glasgow Presbytery's Strategy Committee ( of which I was a member a few years back) This Group deals with congregations, often in Vacancy, without a current minister They prayerfully  try to sort out which would benefit from being linked with another nearby congregation. That's the positive spin. Sadly, these visits often put folks on the defensive, thinking it's something that
"will be done TO them" -rather than thinking through for themselves what are the sensible practical economic options. It's such a bad witness  to Christ I always think, when churches refuse to link up and learn to love and unite in His Name.

However, that said...a fellow Deacon once wisely said to me. "You know Dot, technology, media, everything is moving so fast these days, that for some people, particularly the elderly, the ONLY THING, that has stayed the same and where they feel they have a link with the past, is their church and church building. That's why they find it so difficult to lose a building. It's often elderly folks who have HAD to deal with change all their lives, and value their weekly worship and its stability above all.....

Makes you see both sides...