You are invited to the service being held for the Dedication and Commissioning of the Ministry of The Crask Church at The Crask Inn, Lairg IV27 4AB.
The service will be on 21st April 2018 at Noon and will be followed by refreshment and fellowship.
If you wish to be part of the gathering could you reply directly to Douglas and Denise by the beginning of April, so they can plan the catering.
Phone: 01549 411241 or Email: thecraskinn@gmail.com
will be speaking at a meeting in the
(rear entrance from carpark)
“Come and be inspired by what God is doing in the middle of the jungle in Borneo, where Ronny and his team are building facilities to provide accommodation for 1,000 neglected children and schools for 2,000 children from primary to high school level. They are also building a nursery, workers’ and teachers’ accommodation, a training centre, a praise and worship centre, a clinic, a bakery, sewing rooms, visitors’ quarters, a radio station for outreach and a Bible College.
Apart from children having their physical needs met and receiving an education, they are also fed and trained spiritually, so that they can return to their villages as well as go into other villages that are unreached, plant churches and bring the gospel to their people.”
All are very welcome.
On Good Friday morning, there was a lovely large gathering of Christian people of all ages in the Rose Garden in Tain, for the traditional ‘Hot Cross Bun‘ event (as it is described). That description really doesn’t do it justice. It was a moving service of prayer, praise, dancing, testimony and teaching, to mark Christ’s sacrifice for our Salvation. These people came together to worship, share fellowship and take refreshment together. It was so uplifting to see so many children as part of the gathering and also taking part in the service.
Just three days ago, the situation seemed hopeless, all that signified normality was suddenly turned upside down. The one on whom we relied had been take away and the future seemed pretty bleak. And then suddenly against all expectation, what might have seemed impossible has happened. The seemingly hopeless situation has been redeemed in a way that defies comprehension, that casts the world and life and death in a new light.
Of course I might be speaking from the perspective of the disciples of Jesus; as they recall what happened from Judas’s kiss in the Garden of Gethsemane on a Thursday night a couple of millennia ago, until the women arrived at Jesus’ tomb early on Easter morning and found the stone rolled away and the tomb empty. Then one by one the followers of Jesus came face to face with the reality of the power of God and of the Glorious Resurrection of His Son.
On the other hand, I might be speaking of things that have happened in my life in these last days or maybe things that have happened in yours. What the rocky journey of the last wee while has underlined for me again and again, is if I am prepared to trust in God and stop thinking that I should or could control my life or resolve every difficulty on my own, then against all expectation, what might have seemed impossible can happen. Seemingly hopeless situations have been redeemed in ways that defies comprehension, that cast the world and life and death in a new light. Of course that is not to say that what has happened is what I might have asked for or imagined, but then as Paul wrote to the Ephesians:
“I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, for ever and ever. Amen.”
A joyous and peaceful Easter to you all and may you trust in God to make the unimagined a reality in your lives.
Blessings
James
On Thursday over 40 children and many adult helpers gather in Lairg Community Centre for the “Lost Sheep” holiday club.
We prayed:
listened stories from scripture, acted out by our own Good Shepherd:
made crafts:
played games:
all the while trying not to get caught by the big (by maybe not so bad) wolf:
And then we had a picnic:
Suffice to say an uplifting, spirit-filled, educational and enjoyable time was had by all.
A wonderful gathering of Christian Witness in Lairg this morning from across the Christian Community.
Not entirely dry, but not enough rain to dampen the spirits of the crowd that gathered to mark the road to Calvary.
“And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?“
The Kyle of Sutherland Hub was the venue for a busy gathering of Christians yesterday (Tues 27th Feb). The idea grew out of the gatherings to celebrate the Eucharist at Liz and Buster Crabb’s home in Ardgay, but was the realisation of an earlier dream that Liz and Rosie Baxter had for a Christian gathering at the Lady Ross Hotel/Cafe/Restaurant (which burnt down and was demolished and replaced by the Kyle of Sutherland Development Trust building) in Ardgay.
Hub Church grew from a desire of Christians from different traditions to get together for Prayer and Praise without it being “too churchy“. And that is exactly what 17 people did yesterday. We sang, prayed, heard scripture and testimony and then as all such gathering should do, we retired to the Hub Cafe of tea and coffee and fellowship. Thanks to Liz and Rosie for organising and Simon for accompanying our singing.
This will be a regular gathering on the last Tuesday of each month at 5:30pm in the Hub. The form that it takes will vary from month to month. All are invited, all are welcome, the only requirement is that you want to worship God in the name of His Son Jesus Christ.
On my way to and from Lairg early on Sunday morning, there were two items on the radio that particularly caught my attention and as the day went by I started to see connections between them.
The first was in the Sunday Service on Radio Scotland, when the preacher said “Jesus leaves His Father in Heaven to come to a world where He’s not welcome, where He’s not received. He experiences alienation and rejection. His earthly family misunderstand and reject Him. His enemies pursue Him. Jesus has no home, no pillow of His own to rest His head on. And in the end He’s dragged through a rigged trial, condemned to death even though He’s innocent and then crucified.”
The second was in the review of the papers, when the news that Brendan Cox, husband of murdered MP Jo Cox, had stepped down from the two charities that were set up in her name as a result of a number of earlier allegations of inappropriate behaviour towards women. In his statement, Mr Cox said: “I do acknowledge and understand that during my time at Save the Children I made mistakes and behaved in a way that caused some women hurt and offence, this was never malicious, but it was certainly inappropriate. In the past I have focused on disputing what I felt was untrue in the allegations, but I realise now that it’s more important to take full responsibility for what I have done.” He also said he was committed to holding himself to “much higher standards of personal conduct” in the future.
On the face of it they don’t appear to have much in common, so where is the connection? For me it’s in the two sections in bold type. As I listened to the first piece, I became increasingly uneasy, because I felt that that what was being said was a gross simplification, it was casting the whole thing in terms of goodies and baddies in much the way that the old Westerns did (except in this case the goodies didn’t wear white hats and the baddies black!) From the perspective of Pilate, he had a responsibility to keep peace in his corner of the Roman Empire and woe-betide him if riots had broken out on his watch. Caiaphas, for all his faults, was committed to preserving the Jewish way of life, not rubbing the occupying force up the wrong way and having Jewish freedoms curtailed. Yes both played fast and loose with the facts to preserve what they believed in and, broadly speaking, they were dealing with a dissident who was bent on upsetting the status quo. They were however far less brazen about it than the leader of a country three and a half thousand miles to our west today. The point is that there are different points of view and the ‘Kingdom of Pilate’ and the ‘Kingdom of Caiaphas’ are radically different than the ‘Kingdom of God’. I don’t believe either man to be wholly bad without any redeeming features; but they did understood the situation very differently to the message of Good News that Jesus was preaching.
Now to Mr Cox. In any interaction between two people, there are (at least) two understandings of what has happened. In the past, he has concentrated on the aspects of the testimony of his accusers that he believed to be wrong, in order to maintain his innocence. So what has changed? Mr Cox in reflecting perhaps on the legacy of his late wife, has switch his focus from his feelings to those of his accusers. He may well not understand why they are so upset and hurt by his past behaviour towards them, but he now accepts the plain fact that they are hurt and upset by what he did. He has now realised that his understanding is different to theirs and is prepared to acknowledge that publically. What he has done might: help to bring some healing to those that he has hurt, allow the charities set up in his late wife’s name to move forward without a shadow hanging over them and help him to become the better person he would like to be. What Mr Cox has done is what the Prayer Book means when it says “Remission of all your sins, true repentance, amendment of life”.
It is just so easy to see things from one point of view and as black and white. This Lent as we reflect on how we live our lives we might do worse that consider this short extract from a poem written in 1895 by Mary T. Lathrap called Judge Softly (often mistakenly attributed to to various indian tribes):
Just walk a mile in his moccasins
Before you abuse, criticize and accuse.
If just for one hour, you could find a way
To see through his eyes, instead of your own muse.
I believe you’d be surprised to see
That you’ve been blind and narrow minded, even unkind.
Blessings
James
I was reading a book the other night and I came across this quote from the monk Thomas Merton:
“Those who attempt to act and do things for others or for the world without deepening their own self-understanding, freedom, integrity and capacity for love, will not have anything to give others. They will communicate nothing but the contagion of their own obsessions.”
That’s probably a good description of why Jesus withdrew into the wilderness after His baptism – to “deepen his own self-understanding, freedom, integrity and capacity for love”, and why at intervals in the Gospels we come across verses like Mark 1:35
In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed.”
Praying is about a relationship in which you allow someone other than yourself to enter into the very core of your being and to see there what you would rather remained hidden and to touch things that you would rather leave untouched. Why would you really want to do that?
Perhaps because, like Jesus we recognise that all that we do, requires the Grace of God and being attentive to God’s will. So of course we need to keep tuning in to that so that in our attempts to love our neighbour we don’t simply “communicate nothing but the contagion of our own obsessions.”
We have done some rethinking of the Ardgay Services that Liz and Buster Crabb have kindly hosted for a few years now. On the second Tuesday of the month, there will continue to be a Eucharist in Liz and Buster’s living room at 10:30am as before, but the services that used to be on the fourth Tuesday of the month are changing.
On the last Tuesday of each month (which is usually also the fourth Tuesday), Services of Prayer and Praise will be held in the Kyle of Sutherland Hub, at 5:00pm followed by fellowship in the Hub Cafe.
These services are open to all in Ardgay, Bonar Bridge and beyond who wish to meet together with other Christians in Prayer and Praise to the God who made Heaven and Earth and whose son Jesus Christ died for our Salvation.
All are welcome, whether established Churchgoer or just a wee bit curious.
Scottish Episcopal Church - Dornoch, Lairg, Brora, Tain & Tongue 