Recommended books: Mark, Ecclesiastes, Peter

On Sunday mornings we've just started back into Mark's gospel. Let's Study Mark divides the book into small sections, and adds 2-3 pages of explanation for each part. 

It would be an ideal way to get more familiar with the message of Mark's gospel, reading one section per day.

It's written by Sinclair Ferguson, who has been a minister in Glasgow, South Carolina & Dundee. All his books are worth looking out for.

There are also Let's Study guides for the rest of the New Testament books. Cheapest online price: £6.99

Finally, we've just finished a series on 1st Peter in the evening services and we're still bumping into him quite a lot in our series on Mark's gospel (Peter is most likely the eyewitness who gave Mark his information).

Peter: Eyewitness of His Majesty by Edward Donnelly (formerly minister of Trinity Reformed Presbyterian Church in Northern Ireland) is a great introduction to one of Jesus' closest disciples, and shows what we can learn from him today.

Cheapest online price: £5.20

At our Thursday evening Bible study we've recently started into Ecclesiastes - which has been called the most difficult book of the Bible to interpret!

However it's also been called 'the most contemporary book in the Bible' because it 'exposes the mad quest to find satisfaction in knowledge, wealth, pleasure, work, fame, and sex'. So it's worth working hard to try and understand it!

Destiny is a brand new book which came out the day we started studying Ecclesiastes. It's easy to read, and gets the message of Ecclesiastes across very well.

It's written by David Gibson, a minister in Aberdeen and comes recommended by Dale Ralph Davis & Alec Motyer (anything they've written on the Old Testament is worth reading).

Cheapest online price: £6.79

What do you want for your children? (Newspaper article)

What do you want most for your children or grandchildren? If you could pick just one thing, what would it be? Would you choose for them to be healthy? Or happy? Would you choose academic success or a good job or for them to have a stable family of their own?

Former boxing world champion Nigel Benn was asked that question recently on national radio. He was being interviewed on the Colin Murray Show along with his son Conor, who at 19 is already a highly-rated boxing prospect. Benn snr was asked what his dream was for his son when he closes his eyes at night.

His answer was something that few would have expected. The former double world champion replied ‘to be honest with you, my dream for him first of all is to get to know Jesus’. Yes, as Benn went on to say, he’d love it if Conor went on to outdo him and win three world titles. But above all his dream is for his son ‘to know Jesus more than anything else’.

What’s all the more remarkable is that this is coming from a man who at one point in his life famously described himself as ‘Satan’s right hand man’. His older brother had died in unexplained circumstances when Benn was eight, and from then on he lived an anger-filled life. He drank, took drugs, suffered from depression and attempted suicide one night in his car. He was ‘addict[ed] to drink, sex and smoking weed’.

But interestingly, Benn wants more for his son than for him to live on the straight and narrow. He wants more for Conor than sporting success and a stable personal life. Because he realises that none of those things can bring contentment. And that a hundred years from now, the only thing that will matter is whether Conor knew Jesus or not.

Benn had all the world could offer. But it didn’t offer true joy. He realised that he had a broken relationship with his Creator that only Jesus could restore. Now, he’s a changed man. He explains: ‘I'm not chasing nothing any more. My Porsche has gone, my Cadillac's gone, I've got rid of everything, but what I have is contentment’.

Benn has found the one thing in life that ultimately matters, and he wants his son to experience it too. Will we settle for less for those we love most in the world?

Published in Stranraer & Wigtownshire Free Press, 8th September 2016

Stranraer GO Weekend

From 26-29 August the Stranraer congregation had the help of short-term mission team (GO team), made up of 8 people from Ireland and 3 from Scotland.

While here, the team:

• Gave out postcards (with a Bible verse & invitation to the church) to homes in Castle Kennedy, Dunragit, Glenluce, New Luce, Newton Stewart, Kirkcolm, Leswalt, Portpatrick, Ardwell, Port Logan, Drummore, Kirkcowan & Wigtown.
• Took part in open-air psalm singing in Stranraer town centre on the Saturday afternoon
• Sang psalms and spent time with the residents in Dalrymple Court (sheltered housing, just down from the church)
• Took part in several fellowship events: a church BBQ, a men's breakfast, the screening of a film about the Reformer John Knox and a church lunch.
• The team also had the opportunity to visit Covenanter sites in Wigtown and learn about those in the past for whom loyalty to Jesus had cost them their lives.

We are grateful to those who came on the team for their work, and thank God for a very encouraging weekend.

RPCS Young Adults' BBQ

On Saturday 20th August around 25 young adults from the 5 RPCS congregations met in Ayr for a BBQ (given the weather we were glad that we had been kindly granted the use of Ayr Free Church Continuing's building!). It was a great opportunity to meet new people and get caught up with old friends. It also provided a rare chance to enjoy fellowship with those outside of our own congregations. We closed with a brief time of worship and sang from Psalm 133. It is hoped that events such as these will help encourage more fellowship within the denomination. 

RP International Conference 2016

The RP International Conference is held every 4 years in Indiana, USA. The RP Church of Scotland was represented by 8 people from Glasgow, 2 from Stranraer and 1 from Airdrie.

 Below is a report by Rev. Kenneth Stewart, minister of Glasgow RP Church.

The Conference was held on the campus of Indiana Wesleyan University – a large, modern campus with excellent facilities and one which is not ashamed to display its Christian heritage and identity. It is hard to convey the good done to the soul by seeing Biblical texts on display in the grounds and on the walls of a university campus. While reinforcing how thoroughly secularised Scotland has become, it also helps to foster a vision and, for those of us with an optimistic eschatology, it serves as a tangible reminder of what God can do and what our nation could yet become when ‘a little one becomes a thousand’.

The Conference lasted from Saturday to Friday and was packed full of opportunities for teaching, fellowship, prayer and recreation. The main addresses, delivered every morning, were focused on the theme of ‘The Sacrificing Church: Ministering Faithfully as Priests in the Local Congregation’ looking successively at The Sacrificing Church as a Worshiping Temple, a Praying Priesthood, a Believing Community, a Merciful People and as a Mission Outpost. The speaker, Barry York who is Professor of Pastoral Theology in the RPTS, spoke earnestly and plainly from the Scriptures and gave plenty material for spiritual profit and for on-going meditation. Classes ran concurrently for children of all ages including High School.

There were two sessions of seminars every day, as many as eight at a time, with wide-ranging themes with the topics ranging from ‘Mission in China’ to ‘The Digital Age’, from ‘Dealing with Cancer’ to ‘Raising Teenagers’ – the choice seemed endless. Because no single seminar was repeated and because many of us wanted to attend several, we decided to split up and report back, which seemed to work quite well!

Some of the Scottish contingent at the airport on the way home

Lasting impression are, briefly, as follows.

First, the RP church family lays great store on discipling their children. It was most impressive to see so many young families on the same campus being so committed to the things of the Lord (there were nearly 80 under 2 years of age!) I was (pleasantly!) accosted more than once at dinner by some child asking if I was an Elder and eager to recite a Bible verse, so that they could get a signature and eventually, a prize – while of course reciting a text nearly 50 times in the process. Quite clever! They all take education seriously and I couldn’t help but be envious –with a holy envy – of their Christian schools and their emphasis on Christian education generally. Their commitment is obvious – no way would these families consider not going to the conference because they needed a ‘holiday’: this was their holiday and lounging unproductively in the sun would never provide what these days were providing.

Second, the quality of their singing: it was disciplined, lively, tuneful and hearty. Again, clearly, they take it seriously. The sight and sound of over 2000 people singing the Psalms will stay with me and with the rest of us too. What will heaven’s singing be like if it can sound so good on the earth?

Third, the opportunity to meet with fellow covenanters from all over the world, most of them being from the States, was refreshing for the soul. Their interest in us, in Scotland, is real and sincere and the warmth of their affection is very humbling. Mealtimes – so well organised on the campus – were times of spiritual enrichment as well as bodily nourishment with problems and encouragements profitably shared. On occasions such as this, we can truly say ‘Behold how good a thing it is, and how becoming well; together such as brethren are in unity to dwell’.

Finally, should you consider going? Indeed! Even the cost is not as prohibitive as it seems: If you begin to set aside £10 a week, you’re covered for the total cost well in advance of time for booking. So, as the Ethiopian Eunuch said, ‘What hinders me?’