Stranraer Town Trail - The Muntin Kirk

Our church building features on the Stranraer Town Trail, which highlights 19 places of interest in Stranraer. The blue plaque, on the front well of the building, notes that when the original RP church building in Stranraer was built around 1797, it was known locally as the Muntin (Mountain) Kirk as a reminder of services held in the hills and mountains in Covenanting times.

An accompanying leaflet, produced by the Stranraer & District Local History Trust, says:

“The R. P. Church was built in 1825. Once known locally as the Muntin’ Kirk, it is a reminder of the days when members met in secret in the hills to avoid religious persecution. Beneath the modern road are the old ‘Mountain Bridge’ and another culverted stretch of the town burn.”

The first place of interest on the leaflet is the Castle of St John: “In 1678 it was used as a base by John Graham of Claverhouse — Bluidy Clavers — and his troops during their pursuit and suppression of local Covenanters”.

Other places of interest included are North Strand Street, Burnfoot, North West Castle, the Garden of Friendship, the Stranraer Distillery, McCullouch’s Mill, Tradeston, Little Ireland, New Town Hall, McWilliam’s Pump, Dunbae House, the Old Parish Church, the Old Town Hall, the Princess Victoria monument, the West Pier, George Street, and Jubilee Fountain.

The following history of Stranraer is included on the leaflet:

“The place-name Stranraer is thought to mean the row of houses on the strand or shore. Alternatively the name could be a combination of the Gaelic words struathan and reamhar and means the fat stream' or the 'place where the shoals of fish are to be found'.

The town of Stranraer came into being late in the Middle Ages. Around 1510 the Adairs, a powerful local family, built a massive stone castle which was both a family home and an administrative centre for their estates. Stranraer grew up in the shadow of the castle. It became a Burgh of the Barony in 1595 and in 1617 was elevated to a Royal Burgh by James Vl.

By the late 18th century Stranraer was the largest town in Wigtownshire. Its economy was based on tanning, fishing, boat building and linen weaving and it acted as the market centre for the western part of the county. Potatoes and grain were exported to Ireland and huge quantities of timber were imported from the Baltic and later Canada.

In the early 19th century Stranraer was a moderately prosperous place but further development was hampered by the town's geographical isolation. That was to change in 1861 when the railway came to town. The following year work was completed on the new East Pier and in 1872 the iron paddle-steamer 'Princess Louise' inaugurated the ferry service to Larne. Stranraer now had good rail contacts with Glasgow, central Scotland and the north of England and, more importantly, had become the principal ferry port between Scotland and Ireland.”

The Skiffies and the Storm

The SkiffieWorlds are one of Stranraer’s success stories. An article in the Scotsman on Saturday described the coastal rowing championships as ‘the celebration of community in a town that refused to become a backwater’. It reflects ‘the ambition of a community refusing to accept decline as inevitable’ – and indeed is ‘one of Scotland’s most remarkable community regeneration stories’. Last time round, between 20,000 and 30,000 visitors descended on the town – bringing in an estimated £3.5 to £4 million for the local economy. This time is the biggest ever with a record-breaking 79 teams taking part.

You don’t have to look too far in the Bible to find stories about boats: from Jonah being thrown overboard, to Jesus and his (mostly) fishermen disciples on the Sea of Galilee, to the three shipwrecks of the Apostle Paul. In fact, at eight miles across, the Sea of Galilee, that Jesus and the disciples frequently crossed, is the same width as Loch Ryan is long.

One story involving Jesus, the disciples and the water, took place when Jesus told them to cross those eight miles of the Sea of Galilee to the other side. Partway across however, a great windstorm arose, and the waves were breaking into the boat, which began to fill with water.

We can tell how bad a storm it was from how the disciples react. Many of them were experienced fishermen. They knew this stretch of water like the back of their hands. They had seen in all. But when this storms hits, they’re absolutely terrified.

And yet despite all this, Jesus was in the stern of the boat, asleep on a cushion – the only time in the gospels we read about him sleeping. But the disciples wake him and say ‘Teacher, don’t you care that we’re perishing?’ And then we read the remarkable words: ‘And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm’.

It’s not that the storm merely started to subside when he spoke. In a split second it became as still as glass. And how do the disciples react? Well they were ‘afraid’ before. But now they were ‘filled with great fear’.

Why? Let’s put ourselves in their shoes. These were men who had been brought up living and breathing the Old Testament. It was in their veins. And they knew that what Jesus had just done is something taken right out of Psalm 107. Calming a storm like this was something the Bible described only God as doing.

Psalm 107 talks about men who’re at their wits’ end. They cry to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivers them from their distress. He makes the storm be still and the waves of the sea be silent. And that’s exactly what Jesus does here. Someone has said: ‘The elements knew the voice of their Master, and, like obedient servants, were quiet at once.’

At this point the disciples realise that an event which they’ve been singing about all their lives has just happened in front of their very eyes. Which can only mean that this man they’ve been travelling around with, eating with and talking to – is God himself. And so no wonder that ‘they were filled with great fear and said to one another “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”’

During the storm, the disciples were fearful in the sense of timid or cowardly. But a different word for fear is used to describe their response to Jesus calming it. It refers to an appropriate fear. Because if you think about it, sometimes fear is healthy. If you’re working with electricity there’s a healthy kind of fear which won’t leave you a shivering wreck, but it will mean there are certain things you won’t do. You realise the power that electricity has – and so you act accordingly. And in the same way if we truly realised the power that God has, we would act accordingly. But amazingly that doesn’t mean running from him – but to him. So often we fear the wrong things, like what other people will think of us. But don’t let the opinion of others keep you away.

The best illustration of all this comes from ‘The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe’. Four children arrive in a land of talking animals and find out that they’re going to be meeting Aslan, the great lion. When they find out he’s a lion they ask: ‘Is he quite safe?’ To which the response they get is: ‘Safe? Who said anything about safe? Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the king, I tell you’.

Published in the Stranraer & Wigtownshire Free Press, 10th July 2025

Lost in the Snow

On December 28th 1908 Postman Robert Cunningham set off from Ballantrae in blizzard conditions to deliver the mail to the surrounding hamlets and farmhouses. On his way home, he took a detour over the moor as snow had blocked the usual road. He never made it back, and his body was found two days later, lying on his empty mail sack and covered by the snow. He was 27. The following year, a cross was erected in his memory.

 It reminds me of the story of another young man lost in the snow. The parents of a boy in the Highlands died when he was very young and, as he had no one to care for him, he went to live with his grandfather, who was a shepherd. His grandfather told him many of the stories in the Bible, especially stories about shepherds. He told him about how Moses and David had been shepherds, and how Jesus is described in the Bible as ‘the Good Shepherd’ who laid down his life for the sheep.

 The boy had never learned to read, so his grandfather taught him a simple way to remember the first five words of Psalm 23 – ‘The Lord is my shepherd’. He took the boy's left hand, and as he said each word he would point to a finger. Soon the boy could say the words himself, holding each finger as he did so. The grandfather noticed that the boy seemed to take special pleasure in the fourth word, ‘my’, and held his fourth finger tightly.

 As the boy grew older, he was able to take the sheep out by himself to find pasture. Late one afternoon, however, the old man became worried. The weather was bitterly cold and it had been snowing for some time.

 The snowstorm turned into a blizzard and the old man put on his coat and hat and raced out of the house in search of the boy. However, the fierce winds and blinding snow made it impossible. He would soon lose all sense of direction, and his old and weary body was unable to go further.

 With a heavy heart he returned to his little cottage and slumped down on the chair in front of the fire.  Nothing could be done until the blizzard stopped. He prayed that God would watch over the boy. He thought of the things he had tried to teach him, and hoped that he would not forget them. A long and restless night lay ahead.

 By morning, the snow had stopped, so the old man wasted no time. He went to where he thought the lad might be sheltering. Suddenly, in the distance, he saw a mound in the snow. His heart sank as he raced towards it. Desperately he pushed the snow away and there he saw the little shepherd lad frozen to death. The old man wept sadly as he looked at the little body.

 As he continued to brush the snow away, he noticed that the boy’s hands were clasped in a strange way. His right hand was firmly gripping the fourth finger of the left hand. The old man remembered how he had taught him to say: ‘The Lord is my Shepherd’ by holding a finger for each word. There was no doubt that the finger the lad was holding stood for the word ‘my’.

 The old grandfather lifted up his eyes and thanked God that the little shepherd boy had known that the ‘Good Shepherd’ was his Shepherd.

 Psalm 23 is still a much-loved psalm today, and often sung at funerals. But the story of the shepherd boy makes me wonder – how many people can truly say that the Lord is ‘my’ Shepherd?

 Sadly I suspect that at many funerals, those words are not true of the deceased or many of those present – perhaps not even of the minister.

 But ultimately, in the face of death, having the Lord as our shepherd is the only thing that matters. The Bible teaches, in another famous chapter, that ‘All we like sheep have gone astray’. It goes on to say that ‘we have turned – every one – to our own way’. And yet the tremendous good news, prophesied 700 years before the cross, is that ‘the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all’ (Isaiah 53:6).

And so if Jesus is our Shepherd, he will guide us safely home, to heaven itself. The shepherd boy didn’t have much – but he had the one thing that really mattered. 

Published in the Stranraer & Wigtownshire Free Press, 12th June 2025

Harry & Mary Jane: 6 weeks in Stranraer

Harry and Mary Jane Ward, an elder and his wife from the Shawnee (Kansas) RP Church were with us for 6 weeks from late April through to the end of May. While they were here, they were involved in all aspects of church life. Harry led a weekly Bible study and did some practical work around the church. Mary Jane continued to teach the second Sabbath School class which had been begun when Rita Lyon was with us.

On their final Lord’s Day with us, they were presented with a clock, the background of which is a map of the local area. We are very grateful for their willingness to come and their investment in our lives.

Living between D-Day and VE Day

Today marks 80 years since VE Day. There have been and will be street parties, proclamations, RAF flypasts and more. Eighty years have passed since the moment when, eight days after Adolf Hitler’s suicide, his successor authorised Germany’s surrender. And on this eightieth anniversary, I want to suggest two lessons we might draw from it.  

The first one comes from Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s speech to the House of Commons eighty years ago today. He noted that after the end of WWI, the House ‘did not feel inclined for debate or business, but desired to offer thanks to Almighty God’. Churchill then moved:

‘That this House do now attend at the Church of St. Margaret, Westminster, to give humble and reverent thanks to Almighty God for our deliverance from the threat of German domination’.

Those who lived through those terrible days knew that God had sustained them, and that nothing would be more fitting on the day of victory than to acknowledge their thanks to him. If that is not our own first reaction eighty years on, I would suggest that it is not a change for the better.

There is however another lesson that we can take, or at least an illustration that we can draw, from VE Day. And that is that it came almost a year after D-Day. D-Day was the military name given to the Allied invasion of France on 6 June 1944. It was the largest seaborne invasion in history. The operation began the liberation of France, and the rest of Western Europe, and laid the foundations of the Allied victory on the Western Front.

And yet as incredible as that victory was, it would be almost another year until VE Day. For eleven months, the fighting would continue, and many more would die. D-Day guaranteed that VE Day would eventually happen. But much conflict lay in between.

Christians have often used this as an illustration of the time in which we are now living. Jesus’ death on the cross was D-Day. On it, he won a decisive victory over Satan, sin and death.

And yet the war is not over. One day, VE Day will dawn and Jesus will return. But until that day, the battles will continue. Suffering will still be a reality. We will still face temptation. And yet in the midst of that, it helps to know that VE Day is coming. In fact, D-Day guarantees that VE Day will happen. Jesus’ victory on the cross guarantees that one day he will return.

This also helps us respond when people use the reality of suffering to try and disprove God’s existence. For one thing, the Bible is clear that suffering was not part of the world as God originally made it. Suffering and death feel so wrong to us because they weren’t part of God’s original plan.

On top of that, the D-Day/VE Day illustration helps answer the question: ‘Why doesn’t God DO something about suffering?’ The answer is that he has. He sent his Son to earth. Jesus’ miracles are also described in the Bible as ‘signs’. They’re not things that we’re meant to try and recreate, as some well-meaning Christians suppose. Rather, they’re signs pointing to the world as it once was – and one day will be again. They’re little glimpses of the ‘new heavens and new earth’ (2 Peter 3:13) breaking into this broken world.

And so as we mark the eightieth anniversary of VE Day today. We’re thankful for those who fought – many of whom sacrificed their lives. We honour those remaining veterans. But may we not forget to give, as Churchill put it, ‘humble and reverent thanks to Almighty God’ for the deliverance granted then, and the peace we enjoy today.

For those interested in finding out more about Christianity, the gap between D-Day and VE Day helps explain how Christians look at the world today. Suffering and temptation are an ongoing reality. Battles will be lost. And yet ultimate victory is guaranteed because of what happened at the cross.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, there was much optimism about human progress. This was shattered by two world wars. It would be hard to read about those conflicts and to deny that ‘good’ and ‘evil’ are objective realities. And yet according to the Bible, ‘no-one is good but God alone’. So how can we be ready for Jesus’ return on the ultimate VE Day? Only by responding rightly to D-Day, and the victory won for us then.

Published in the Stranraer & Wigtownshire Free Press, 8th May 2025