News
Coffee Morning for
Street Dweller Project
There will
be a Coffee Morning on Saturday 24th July in the Church Hall, to raise funds
for the Street Dweller Project, Bangladesh. A minimum donation of £2.00
is requested. There will be plenty
of tea, coffee, cakes and company, as well as a bring
and buy stall so come along and join us. If you can donate a cake, scones or
tray bake we would be most appreciative. If you have continued to collect your
small change since ‘Counting Blessings’ in Lent, then please
bring those along
too. We look forward to seeing you on 24th July.
Calling all primary
age children
This year
the holiday club will be “casting the net” in “Rocky’s Plaice.” If you don’t want to miss out on
the action come along to Kirkcudbright Primary School from 16-20 August from
10am till 12 noon. Fun, games,
crafts, stories and adventure for all!
For more information contact the church office (330489) or Mhairi on 01557 860381.
Sunday School
This Sunday
27th June is the last Sunday of the year for our Sunday School.
The children are involved in
running the service with some very profound questions to ask the congregation.
In the past we have stopped over the summer but next Sunday 4th July is the
first Sunday of our new year! The
leaders got together and agreed that we would continue with Sunday School over the holidays because the groups are growing and
we do not want to lose the children we have. We now have 3 groups - Creche in the church vestry, P1-3 in upper room at the hall
& P4-7 in hall as well. We
could really do with some more leaders in all of the groups. Please could you
have a think and a prayer and could you consider helping us. It is roughly once a month you would
need to be involved. If you are
interested in helping please contact Sarah Phillips (01557 830272) in the first
instance as he is the Disclosure Scotland person for our Church. We invite any visiting children to join
us any Sunday. They will be made very
welcome. They can be collected from
the hall after the service and while you enjoy a coffee & a chat.
The BIG Sing
The
BBC’s Songs of Praise “Big Sing” will be held in the Royal
Albert Hall in London on Sunday 12th September 2010, with tickets
priced £10 a head.
Consideration is being given to a number of us going down to take
part. If you would like to do so,
please contact Irene Robertson on 01557 331234.
Reviewing our
giving to Christ
With no
other volunteers coming forward despite numerous appeals, Andy Bain has taken
over again as Church Treasurer following Peter Butler’s resignation. Peter was thanked at the May Meeting of
the Congregational Board for his diligence over the past months. Andy Bain’s own work as a Scenes
of Crime Officer is demanding and he cannot devote all the time needed to do
the treasurer’s work. In
practice Andy will be supervising a large part of the treasurer’s work
which is to be carried out on a day to day basis by the Stewartry
Council of Voluntary Services, with the designated member of staff being Anne Corson, contactable on 01557 331346. Under the agreement entered into between
the Church and SCVS for SCVS to provide book-keeping and accountancy services
to the Church, SCVS will attend to all book-keeping, banking and handling of
cash on a day-to-day basis, prepare cheques and settle accounts, write up
income and expenditure accounts, reconcile bank statements, prepare monthly
reports for the Congregational Board and carry out all work to enable the
auditors to finalise the annual accounts.
Concurrent with these local developments, there will be renewed focus on
making appeal to our own membership for a review of individual giving. In this regard, nationally, it was
reported to the General Assembly in May that congregations who have made use of
the Church of Scotland’s own Stewardship and Finance Office Appeal Scheme
have reported impressive results.
The sixteen churches who participated in the Scheme all saw increases in
their offerings last year, with one congregation's giving increasing by a
staggering 44 per cent - a particularly creditable rise given the credit
crunch. Our last major appeal to
the Congregation on the givings front was in the Spring of 2006. We did this
ourselves without outside help.
Following this appeal, congregational income rose appreciably. This was largely due to an increase in
the number of gift aid contributors, who make their regular offering for the
work of the Kingdom either through envelopes put in the offering plate on
Sundays or through direct debit.
With the loss last year of a sizable number of gift aid contributors,
mainly through death, total congregational giving is down by £10,000 on
last year and so we make appeal to our readers to individually review at this
time their giving to Christ.
Additionally, tax payers are encouraged to sign a declaration to the
effect that they wish their offerings – enveloped or by direct debit
– treated as gift aid. Due to
underuse, pink Free Will Offering envelopes are being phased out and from next
year all regular contributors by filled envelopes will be issued with blue envelopes
currently issued only to gift aid contributors. Our gift aid administrator Valerie Blandy will be happy to hear from members and friends of
the congregation with an enquiry about gift aid contributions and generally
concerning regularly giving to the Church to see the work of Christ’s
Kingdom extended. Pease speak to
Valerie in confidence on 01557 332021.
She would be glad to hear from you confidentially about becoming a gift
aid or freewill offering envelopes donor or about increasing your regular
giving. Additionally, and as an
alternative, our Church offers the membership opportunity to further
Christ’s Kingdom work through giving in kind, through giving of your time
and talents, with many opportunities to serve. In this connection, you may like to
speak to talk in the first instance to the new leader of our Pastoral and
Social Care Group, Irene Robertson on 01557 331234.
Thank you!
The
New Ecumenism?
A hundred
years ago this year in Edinburgh there was a World Missionary Conference, a
gathering of 160 Missionary Societies represented by 1200 delegates. It considered the ideal of world
evangelisation and led to the closer cooperation between missionary societies
from which the ecumenical movement started. It has taken 100 years to get to where
we are now, Christian churches/groups working together but hardly at one in all
things. I recently attended a
conference which chose as its subject ‘The New Ecumenism?’ Our guest speakers included Tony
Bayfield (a Jewish Rabbi), Racicq Abdulla (a Muslim
poet), Alan Race (A Canon in the Church of England) and Ian Bradley of St
Andrew’s University who introduced his new book ‘Reclaiming Liberal
Theology’. Our intention was
to consider possible links amongst people of faith in our diverse world. I was moved by the Rabbi’s
assertion that the idea of God who intervenes on behalf of his people was blown
apart by the Holocaust. If he could
have intervened at Auschwitz why didn’t he? He held on to a sense of God who weeps
with us in our troubles, similar to the Christian understanding of the
Crucified God. With a world
population that is going up by a third to 6 billion by 2050, how are we going
to living together? Do we still
have to evangelise and aim to make everyone Christian as they thought in 1910?
I hope not. I like the song
‘He’s got the whole world in his hands’, yet I feel God is
saying to me you’ve got the whole world in your hands, what are you going to do? An enjoyable and
thoughtful conference.
David Brown.
Kirkcudbright Arts
Trail—30 July to 1 August
The Parish
Church is included again this year in the venues list for the 2010
Kirkcudbright Arts Trail. Helen
Waddell and the team will again be providing coffees, teas and tray bakes. Help
with this will be the subject of an appeal nearer the time. In the meantime, appeal is made to all
our members and friends who displayed paintings, art and craft work last year
and to new exhibitors, and you are asked to be in touch with the Church Office
if you are willing to do the same again this year. An invitation has been made
to the membership of the Wednesday Craft Group to take part.
and — a Silent Auction
Jane Gibson
has very kindly donated a framed picture of the church which will be the
subject of a Silent Auction during the Craft Trail exhibition weekend. Funds will be given The Ark
Children’s Club.
and — a Craft Sale
In addition,
Kim Lowe is hosting a Craft Sale in the Scout Hall, of which 30% of sales will
be shared between Women of Action (part of Food for the Hungry) and The Ark Children’s
Club. Any exhibitors in the main church exhibition who can make additional
items for sale would be welcome to join in with the Craft Sale.
Please
contact Kim on 01557 870248 for further details about the Silent Auction or
Craft Sale
Prayer Chain
We are privileged
in Kirkcudbright Parish Church to have a monthly healing service, requests for
which can be left at the organ console at any time.
We also have a
small telephone prayer chain with several people on standby to receive prayer
requests at any time as these arise. Anyone in need just needs to lift the
phone and call in their request.
This will be treated confidentially and brought to God in prayer by up
to seven people, subject to their availability at the time the prayer request
is made.
Please feel free
to ring Margaret Livestone-Bussell on 01557 860325
with your Prayer Chain requests or for further information.
Atkinson Place – Flat
to Let
One
bedroom house at 16 Atkinson Place available to let. Applications are available from D. Haining, 68 St. Mary Street, Kirkcudbright DG6 4EJ and
should be lodged in writing by 31st August 2010.
A NEW COURSE FOR
GALLOWAY – AIG FOIS
For
the past three years, Aig Fois,
in Kirkcudbright, has been offering Quiet Days which provide a space to reflect
on our experience of God and how we might like to respond. Earlier this year, in collaboration with
the Epiphany Group, we organized a Retreat in Daily Life (RDL) for churches in
the Galloway area. Following the RDL I was asked what my dreams were for Aig Fois. I didn’t
hesitate. I wanted us to host Growth in Prayer and Reflective Living (GPRL)
which was a course I did in 2004 in Edinburgh and which was run by the Epiphany
Group. No particular experience of
prayer is required, and it is genuinely a course for anyone who has a desire
for God. When I did it participants included both ministers of the Church of
Scotland and people (like me) who were questioning their faith. I found it a
place where my hopes, fears, doubts and dreams could be expressed openly and
without judgement. I felt very affirmed. This course aims to help participants
develop and deepen their experience of prayer and live more reflectively. It
offers opportunity to explore faith and come to a deeper, closer relationship
with God. In doing so, it provides the space to examine our desires and to move
towards the fullness of life we all long for. The purpose of the course is personal
faith development and it is complete in itself. However, it is also the foundation
course for training in Spiritual Conversation, which is offered in a number of
other Ignatian centres. The Galloway course team will be led by
Alison Moody and Sr Margaret Fielding, both of whom
were prayer guides on the Retreat in Daily Life in February 2010. Alison is
based in Edinburgh and is Training Co-ordinator for the Epiphany Group. She is
very experienced. Sr Margaret is currently part of the GPRL course team being
run at the Glasgow Ignatian spirituality Centre.
I’m thrilled that they are both involved. The monthly sessions, comprising three
2½ hour sessions held on Friday evening and Saturday, will take place in
St Ninian’s Church Hall in Castle Douglas. A
detailed leaflet with application form will be available in your church from
July. For more information please contact Rachel Inglis
on 01557 331548 or info@aigfois.co.uk.
I am excited that we are able to host this excellent course in Galloway and I
look forward to seeing you there.
Rachel
Inglis
Thanks You
Christian
Aid Week in Kirkcudbright saw us raise another record amount. This time of £3,952.45. It will go to the campaign to
end poverty. This year saw 15 new
helpers join the band of collectors.
I wish to thank all of them and also the contributors for their generous
support. There were also 16 people
who helped with the count and partook of a soup lunch. Thank you everyone.
Margaret Hughes
Mhairi’s Letter
I don’t know if anyone else has
been struck by what a remote controlled nation we’ve become; exercise
levels all over the country have plummeted as
we’ve become inert couch potatoes.
We can turn the TV on and off at the press of a button, then irritate everyone else by flicking quickly
through the channels at random.
We can use a remote control to choose radio stations, turn the kettle
off, open and close gates and garages and we can even record our
favourite programme via a mobile phone if we have the right “app”
no matter where we are, we don’t even need to be
in the same town!! I read recently
that “Before long, your mobile phone will
also be your wallet, keys, and garage-door opener. Mobile applications will transform
phones into life management devices.” I
for one hope not.
Chris is addicted to all things “gadget”, his
most recent acquisition is a soap dispenser that dispenses soap as you pass
your hand underneath it!! (That has to be the ultimate in encouraging
laziness.) Doors open automatically
as we approach them (though I’ve found problems with this as I’m
too short to be picked up on the sensors so often have to hang about till
someone tall comes along and I sneak in behind them.) One of the most disconcerting
“remote” devices I’ve ever come across was in a
friend’s bathroom; when you walked in to the room the light was
supposed to come on, but it didn’t for me because I was too short. “Wave your arms in the
air” said Maggie which was all very well till half way through my
visit the lights went off and I was left sitting in the dark!!
Washing
the car recently I discovered an interesting remote device I hadn’t come
across before. While I was cleaning
the dashboard all the wee buttons were going in and out but I paid no attention
as the keys weren’t in the ignition.
I got out and closed all the doors which I’d left open to vacuum
the car. When I went back out to
the car I discovered that every door was locked and the keys were lying quite
visible on the passenger seat (yes one of the buttons that clicked had been the
manual locking device which activated when I closed the doors), but then
joy of joys I discovered the back window was open, unfortunately not the whole
boot door just the wee window at the top, which was why if anyone was passing
they would see me perched precariously on a wheelie bin
lying on it’s side climbing in the back window
of the car (not an easy manoeuvre believe me).
Remote
control living is all very well but it can’t beat the sense of
achievement that you feel when you’ve actually physically
done something and not just clicked your fingers like Mary Poppins did in the film and watch everything go into
its proper place.
Thank
goodness Jesus was never remote. He was always in the midst of the crowd
reaching out with His hands to touch the untouchable, reaching out with
compassion to the desperate. We are
the hands of Jesus on this earth, called to love one another. There are many
lonely people in our midst who would appreciate a visit or a summer run in the
car. Let’s reach out as Jesus
did to our neighbours and do something practical. Let’s boycott the remote and bring
back the personal touch.
Every
Blessing
Mhairi