As a congregation, we want to help those in our community who will be isolated at this time and may not have people around them who can pick up essentials for them. More details are below - please share with anyone who could make use of the help:
Martin Colledge, 1923-2020
Martin Colledge, the former Head Gardener at Logan Botanic Garden, passed away on the 2nd of March at the age of 97. He had ben associated with our congregation since the early 1980s. A Service of Thanksgiving for his life was held this morning. Given Martin’s job as a horticulturist and love for the Old Testament, Stephen spoke on how mankind began in a paradise garden, how that paradise was lost, and how it can be regained.
You can listen to a recording below:
The following obituary appeared in the Free Press:
‘Peacefully at Galloway Community Hospital, Stranraer on Monday 2nd March, 2020. James Martin Colledge, aged 97 years formerly of Son Amar, Stoneykirk. Beloved husband of the late Allanina McKinnon, a dearly loved uncle and great uncle. Funeral on Monday 16th March, 2020. Service in the R.P. Church, Dalrymple Street, Stranraer at 1.00pm. Thereafter interment at Stoneykirk cemetery. All friends respectfully invited, family flowers only please, donations if desired in aid of R.N.I.B. on retiral from church’.
We assure Martin’s family of our prayers for them at this time.
Gracie welcomed to Scotland!
Last Lord’s Day we welcomed Gracie to Scotland as she worshipped with us for the first time. Over the past week she has been settling into life in Stranraer, taken part in our first ever ladies’ prayer time, helped run a Scripture Union group in Rephad Primary School, served as an extra pair of hands as we restarted our Toddlers group in its new lunch time format and also helped out at Belvilla Youth, run by our friends at the Baptist Church. She has also spent time in various homes, getting to know the congregation here and offering some practical help. We are glad to have her and are looking forward to the next 7 weeks!
Scripture Union & Toddlers both start this week
A lunch time Scripture Union group began in Rephad Primary School today, led by Amy, Stephen and Gracie. It was great to have around 40 children present.
Amy interviewed Stephen and Gracie (pictured below) about where they were from, and what it means to live as a Christian. She then introduced our theme for the next 6 weeks, ‘God’s rescue plan’, and spoke about the Bible as God’s letter addressed to the world.
Gracie pictured with some of the church kids on Sunday
Tomorrow (Friday 6th March) a lunchtime Toddlers group will begin in the church, running from 12-1pm. Everyone is welcome and there will be no charge.
Now I’m a Belieber: Pop star’s journey from shame to hope
Justin Bieber’s seventh album, Changes, has just debuted at the top of the US Billboard chart, beating a record set by Elvis Presley 59 years ago. At the age of 25, the Canadian singer is now the youngest solo artist ever to achieve seven number one albums.
Despite his youth, Bieber has been in the public eye for more than a decade, having been discovered at the age of 12 when a marketing executive accidentally clicked on a youtube video his mother had uploaded.
His mother, who had become a Christian at 17 following an abusive and troubled childhood, hoped that God would use her son as a voice to his generation. For many years it looked like her prayers had gone unanswered. By 2013 Bieber was no longer the prepubescent teen idol who had rose to fame, and within another year his life was a train wreck. The media catalogued his offences, from egging a neighbour’s house to urinating in a mop bucket, from turning up at a Brazilian brothel to being charged with drink driving after drag-racing his Lamborghini in Miami Beach.
Looking back on it, he says ‘I found myself doing things that I was so ashamed of, being super-promiscuous and stuff, and I think I used Xanax because I was so ashamed. My mom always said to treat women with respect. For me that was always in my head while I was doing it, so I could never enjoy it. Drugs put a screen between me and what I was doing. It got pretty dark’.
Over the last couple of years however his life has turned around. In a recent interview with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe, he says ‘Jesus has saved me’. Like many who may be reading this, although Bieber had been raised with a nominal Christian faith, he says ‘I’d had really bad examples of Christians in my life, who would say one thing and do another’.
But he says that a changed perception of who Jesus really was changed everything. ‘I was just living in this shame, living in all this sort of stuff in my past and I wasn’t able to move on…now the way I look at my relationship with God and with Jesus is I’m not trying to earn God's love by doing good things. God already loved me before I did anything to earn or deserve it. It’s a free gift by accepting Jesus, giving your life to him, and what he did is the gift’.
It’s easy to be sceptical about celebrity conversions, but interestingly Bieber has also spoken about the role of obedience in the Christian life. He says that previously ‘I believed in Jesus, but I never really got that following Jesus means turning away from sin. So there’s no faith without obedience. I had had faith in that I knew Jesus died on the cross for me, but I never really implemented it into my life – I wasn’t being obedient’. One widely-reported aspect of that obedience was his decision to abstain from sex for over a year before his marriage to Hailey Baldwin. Speaking about it, he said: ‘God doesn’t ask us not to have sex [outside marriage] because he wants rules and stuff. He’s trying to protect us from hurt and pain’.
Bieber’s newfound faith has also changed what he values in life. Previously it was money and fame. He says that now those he wants to imitate most are those who have healthy relationships with Jesus, their wives and their children.
The new Bieber is also realistic about the human condition, saying: ‘At the core I don’t believe that humans are good…I fight temptations every day, and things that are instinctive to do – to lie, be greedy, all these things that just naturally come’. As a result, he sees Christianity not as a crutch, or a way to feel better about yourself, but as the answer to humanity’s greatest need: ‘Humanity is broken. Just look around – there’s just so much pain. People are looking for hope and a way out and an escape and truth, and I have the opportunity with my journey to see a God who accepts me and loves me. They call him the Saviour and I believe that to be true’.
For her part Hailey says: ‘Being able to share that with each other—to have that bond of faith and spirituality—is so critical for us. It’s the most important part of our relationship, following Jesus together, being a part of the church community together. It’s everything’. I couldn’t put it any better!
Published in the Stranraer & Wigtownshire Free Press, 5th March 2020