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On Saturday we replaced the old sign on the front of the church, and put up another one on the side of the building. We're thankful to Oasis Design Studio for working with us to design them, and to our friends Daniel and Joel for bringing them over.
The work to the church hall is also coming on well, and we are looking forward to the potential opportunities that will open up as we seek to 'bring good news' to Stranraer!
Lamentations is probably one of the least-known books of the Bible - but we're hoping to become more familiar with it over the next 4 weeks as we read it together using the notes from Let's Worship God, and then get together on Thursday evenings at 6:30pm to discuss it.
The notes were written by Kyle Borg, minister of Winchester RP Church in Kansas. He's pictured above with Stephen at the RP International Conference in the summer. To read more of Kyle's writing, check out his contributions to the Gentle Reformation blog. His sermons are available to listen to on Reformed Voice, along with a helpful seminar he gave at the Conference on rural and small town ministry:
We enjoyed having lunch together in the Craignelder after our last Wednesday Bible study of 2016.
Those who are free during the day meet together each Wednesday to discuss the passage from the previous Sunday morning's sermon.
The first one in 2017 will be on Wednesday 11th January at 11am in the church. It's been good to have some new faces along over the past few months, and there's always room for a few more - so if you're free on Wednesday mornings, please do join us!
by Mark Loughridge
’Tis the season for baby Jesuses and mangers, wise men and shepherds, as people give a passing acknowledgement to the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. Carol services will be had, children perform their parts, and we will all go home will rosy cheeks and glad hearts, to mince pies and mulled wine, feeling suitably imbued with the Christmas spirit.
This is Advent—marking the coming of the Son of God into the world. The problem is that it is the wrong Advent. I don’t mean simply that we have layered extra detail on top of the Bible’s story, or that we have likely picked the wrong time of the year—although all that is true—I mean that we have picked the wrong advent event.
The word advent means ‘coming’. The Jesus whose arrival we ‘remember’ at Christmas is coming back. That’s the one we are told to be looking for, counting down to. It will be entirely unlike his first arrival. If you’ve missed the point of his first arrival, here’s how you will experience his second—as Jesus describes it.
Imagine the following scenario: You are getting on with a perfectly ordinary day, dropping the children to school, calling in at the shops, sitting at the desk in work. Suddenly you feel the earth start to tremble, a lorry going past?—no, the rumbling and shaking grows. You run outside, and the sun has grown dark—extinguished; you see the moon a strange bloody colour, the stars seem to be falling as if the very fabric of space is being torn apart. You look up into this writhing mass of darkness where sky used to be, and there is a blaze of glorious light, and an awesome figure on a white horse appears wielding a sword. This is no hallucination or comic book hero. This is the divine judge, God the Son, here to bring judgment and retribution on all who have defied, rejected or ignored him. In terror you watch as the sword falls on enemy after enemy. None stands against him. In unbroken horror you watch as he treads the winepress of the fury of God’s wrath.
You run, claw at the dirt, trying to dig a hole to escape, calling on the mountains to fall on you. You would prefer being buried alive in an avalanche to meeting him.
This will be no ‘gentle Jesus, meek and mild’—where did he go? Oh, he came before, and offered forgiveness and peace, and hope. He laid down his life, bearing all the judgment rebels deserved. He welcomed rebels to come, giving lots of time and opportunity.
But time has run out. Now he has come to Judge the earth. He offered to bear your judgment, but if you rejected his offer, you’ve missed your chance. Now only judgment awaits.
Yet there is still time—that baby Jesus who lies in the manger grew up to take your Hell at the Cross if you entrust yourself to him. Don’t miss the point of his first coming, for you won’t miss his second coming.
… And now we open another door on our advent calendar… 6 days to go…
Mark is the pastor of Milford Reformed Presbyterian Church and New Life Fellowship, Letterkenny. This article first appeared on GentleReformation.com.
We're fast approaching the only day of the year when there won't be any negative newspaper headlines. Sadly however that's just because it's the only day of the year when newspapers aren't printed. The fact that this is billed as a time of peace and good will can't mask the fact that we live in a broken world.
Cases of domestic violence rise over Christmas. The first working day in January is known as ‘Divorce Day’. December 25th isn't exempt from brutal murders, such as when a man gunned down his family as they opened presents in the 'Christmas Capital of Texas' in 2011. Even Good King Wenceslas, who spread Christianity among the Czechs, was murdered by his half-brother.
Although our Christmas may be tragedy-free, it's never quite as good as we expect. Children are soon bored with presents they've anxiously waited months for. Parents have the tension of family being round and the stress of trying to get the dinner ready. Soon, it's all over. We find ourselves saying: 'is that it?' And we start looking forward to whatever the next big event is.
But if Christmas leaves you feeling empty this year, it's a reminder that you were made with desires this world can't fulfil. C. S. Lewis once said: 'If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world’.
At this time of year we get glimpses of something beyond this broken world. Time with friends and loved ones, good food, a break from routine. Maybe you could almost believe that there is something magical about it. But ultimately, it disappoints.
Lewis wrote that before he became a Christian: 'an unattainable joy had hovered just beyond the grasp of my consciousness.' We look for satisfaction in this world. But the things we think will bring us joy 'are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited'.
Every fleeting pleasure that we try and hold onto this Christmas is merely a signpost to another world. Don't put so much hope in the signpost that you miss what it's pointing to.
Published in Stranraer & Wigtownshire Free Press, 15th December 2016
