2019 GO Team

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As there was no American mission team in Scotland this year, we had a week-long GO team from 24th - 31st August. The team was made up of 5 people from Scotland and 6 people from Ireland, with another 3 able to join us for the bank holiday weekend.

The team arrived on the Saturday evening, spent time with some of the congregation and watched ‘Logic on Fire’, a recent documentary about God’s work through Martyn Lloyd-Jones.

On the Lord's Day there was a further opportunity for the team and congregation to get to know each other over a church lunch. In the afternoon we went into Thorney Croft care home, which one of the members of the church recently moved into. We held a brief time of worship with the residents, singing some familiar psalms.

On Monday the team made the most of the glorious bank holiday weather to give out leaflets inviting people along to five upcoming special services. A number of good conversations were had. Following a BBQ tea, the team spent time doing some practical work around the manse. We finished the night off with a discussion of the opportunities and challenges small churches have.

The Tuesday morning and afternoon were spent finishing off leaflets in Stranraer itself and doing some of the surrounding villages. In the evening the team went to the Halls’ home for dinner and some games - and a chance to spend time with some of the young people in the congregation.

On the Wednesday morning the team finished off the surrounding villages (Stoneykirk, Sandhead, The Lochans, Leswalt, Kirkcolm, Castle Kennedy, Glenluce, Dunragit and most of Newton Stewart). In the afternoon we opened up the hall and invited people in for tea and coffee. We were encouraged to have people coming in and opportunities to share the gospel.

On Wednesday evening one of the congregation very generously took the team out to the Sun Kai restaurant, before we returned to the church for the first of the mission services, where Stephen spoke on the question ‘Is this really all there is’?

On the Thursday, following a time of prayer in the morning, the team went on trip to see Covenanter sites at Anwoth (where Samuel Rutherford was minister) and Wigtown (where the Two Margarets were martyred). In the evening the team were at the houses of various people in the congregation for tea, before the second night of the mission, where the topic was ‘Are we all going to a better place?’. We finished the night off with a discussion about some of the encouragements of being part of a small church.

On Friday morning, after a time of prayer, Stephen did a seminar for the team on the theme ‘How to listen to a sermon?’ The team then did some more practical work, including some painting in the balcony of the church. In the afternoon, we again opened up the hall and invited people in. Despite the wet weather, we were glad to have more opportunities to share the gospel.

A few of the team also went to Stair Park (home of Stranraer FC) to do some practical work. The team then split up for tea in two separate homes before coming together for the last of our special talks, entitled: Are they looking down on us?

The team departed early on Saturday morning. We are very grateful for their help and fellowship this week, and look forward to seeing many of them again soon!

One Life. Then What? & Big Questions (audio)

The audio of the sermons from our 2019 mission ‘One life. Then what?’ is available to listen to here. The audio from the sermons on Why are Christians such hypocrites and How could a loving God allow suffering is here. You can also find them on iTunes or your podcast player of choice by searching for ‘Stranraer sermons’.

A tragic death remembered

186 years ago today, the six-year-old son of the Stranraer minister, William Symington, was killed in an accident in the manse garden (now McNeil funeral directors - the building is called ‘Mansewood’). The tragic story is recorded below (taken from this article):

Robert’s gravestone - built into the wall of the Reformed Presbyterian graveyard

“During the month that marked fourteen years since his ordination in Stranraer, William and Agnes’s fourth child, Robert, was playing in the manse garden when a stone pillar supporting a sun dial fell on him. He suffered an internal injury, and despite the efforts of three doctors, died within thirty-six hours.

There are a number of touching details associated with the tragic event. His mother gently asked him a number of questions about his faith in Christ and hope for Heaven. Doubtless most of them were catechism questions he had learnt before. But she couldn’t help asking him a final question: ‘Would you not be sorry to leave us all?’ To which he responded by putting his arms around her neck and telling her not to cry because he was going to be with Jesus’.

Thinking back to the event as a widow, nearly 30 years later, Agnes charged her youngest son never to forget a certain friend because of the love he’d shown at the time. The sons don’t tell us his full name, but she was almost certainly talking about James M’Gill. M’Gill was a farmer’s son from Portpatrick and had been part of the Stranraer congregation as a 13-year-old when Symington was ordained. He had gone on to become a minister himself, at Hightae, near Lockerbie.

Agnes told her youngest son: ‘You were an infant six weeks old when Robert died. Mr M‘G- had baptized you, and was on his way home when the tidings overtook him. He turned his horse and came back on the Saturday evening (Robert had died in the morning) and preached on the Sabbath. I crept into the vestry with you at my breast, and heard him preach on “Jesus wept.” Never forget Mr M‘G- as long as you live.”

Tomorrow night we’ll be considering what is a very real question for many who have faced similar tragedies: ‘How could a loving God allow suffering?’
Update: Audio of the talk is available here.

Logic on Fire

We’re looking forward to our GO team arriving tomorrow as we begin a week of leaflet distribution ahead of our mission next week and special services next Sunday, as well as visits to nursing homes, practical work, open air psalm singing and a couple of afternoons where we open the church up and serve free tea and coffee and seek to engage people in conversation.

Things kick off tomorrow night with a movie night in the church hall (7:30pm) where we’ll be watching the film Logic on Fire. It’s about the ministry of Martyn Lloyd-Jones, and is very relevant for Stranraer in 2019 - as he ministered in a time when most churches had stopped preaching the gospel. His years in Wales are particularly relevant as he went to a small, unglamorous place and preached and prayed and saw God do amazing things.

Against Evangelical Pessimism

We’ve just begun going through the book of Acts in our morning worship services. It’s a book which the great twentieth-century preacher Martyn Lloyd-Jones described as a ‘tonic’ for the church. And we do need a tonic in light of the pessimism which dogs much of the evangelical and Reformed church in the UK at present. Below is the first page of an article entitled ‘Against Evangelical Pessimism’, which Stephen referred to in a recent sermon. It’s written by Jeremy Walker, who spoke at the RP Ministers’ Conference in 2017. It appeared in the March 2019 Banner of Truth magazine:

Here are some highlights from the rest of the article:

We need to hook our prayers on the promises that the gates of Hades shall not prevail against the church of Christ, that God’s word shall prosper in the things for which he sends it, that God shall never lack a people, that his glory, he will not give to another, that the gospel is and must be the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, and that the weapons of our warfare are mighty in God for the pulling down of strongholds.

Secondly, we must have confidence in the purchase of Christ. We must believe that he came into the world sinners to save, and that he did not merely make them saveable, but actually purchased a people for himself - those who had been given to him from before the foundation of the world. We must be assured that we are sent into all the world to preach the gospel of Christ and his finished work and present reign to every creature.

We must be assured that Christ is the bread of life. We must believe that his sheep will hear his voice and follow him. We must believe that, being lifted up on the cross and in the preaching of the cross, Christ will draw all to himself, and he will see the travail of his soul and be satisfied. We must believe that the strongest man has bound the strong man, and is now spoiling him of that which once was his. We must believe that he is reigning on high, waiting until all his enemies are made his footstool, that he is still gathering in his chosen ones from every kingdom, tribe, tongue and nation, and that he will come again to take his people home, that all whom he has loved and for whom he has died might be with him where he is.

Third, we must have confidence in the power of the Spirit. We must believe that the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, the God who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ can shine, too, in the hearts of others. We must be assured that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, and that, having saved sinners like Paul and like me and like you, he can save others also.

We must believe that he can move the hearts of men and women to call their families and their friends, so that salvation comes not just to the Lydias, and the jailers, and the Matthews and the Zacchaeuses, but also to those with whom they are connected or come into contact.

We must remember that he can ensure that our preaching does not come in word only, but in power, and in the Holy Spirit, and in much assurance, so that those who hear do not shrug off the words of a mere man, but hear the very Word of God to their souls.

Such confidences must be the fuel of our labours. Such confidences must stimulate fervency in our prayers. We must not allow our expectations to be formed by our fears, but rather fashioned in accordance with faith.

Evangelical pessimism ought to be a contradiction in terms. Such pessimism undermines our confidence, cripples our endeavour, shackles our hope, and dishonours our God. We must fight against it by faith; we must not allow ourselves to be drowned in a sea of doubt and dread dismay. We must trust God’s promises, labour because of Christ’s purchase, and rely on the Spirit’s power.