News from the Emerald Isle

On Monday, 4th June, Heather McRoberts' father, Rev John Finlay becomes the Moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland. Heather and Scott are travelling over to N Ireland on Sunday to be there for his installation. We know that will be a very special occasion for all the family and we will pray for John and his wife Christine on Sunday morning, as they take up this very public role in the coming year.
DM

Holiday Club

Hilton Church Holiday Club presents Going Wild, a jungle themed exciting week of fun and games and learning about God. Going Wild is let loose from Monday 6th August to Friday 10th August 2007, from 10am till 12pm.

Registration days: Friday 22nd June 2007 at Hilton Church from 3.30pm till 4.30pm and 6pm till 7pm. - Saturday 4th August 2007 at Hilton Church from 10am till 12pm.

Registration costs £2, then 50p per day.



Chris Watt
Youth Worker

DISCOVERY CRUISING

Over the years, quite a number of folk from Hilton Church have had the pleasure of spending time on the Emmaus with Melville Paton. Stephen Hutchison is one of the trustees of the Christian Discovery Trust which seeks,

"To advance the Christian faith and provide a caring ministry through the provision of instruction in seamanship and navigation in cruises particularly for young people and youth groups with an emphasis on their personal potential and the value of living together in a caring friendly Christian atmosphere."

The main part of season is fast approaching with a 14 day student cruise beginning on 7th June. Please pray for Melville, for physical and spiitual strength, for the safety and welfare of the crews and for the ministry to the young people who will be on board over the summer.

FUTURE CHURCH

A lot of things at Hilton Church feel "up in the air" at the moment with many new initiatives being prayerfully considered - a re-vamping of our evening worship, a new morning service, a new Monday night cafe/club aimed at young people in the community, a mentoring programme for our own youth, to name but a few. The teams which were established one year ago are clearly gathering momentum. These initiatives all need to be considered very carefully, and to that end I have been doing a lot of reading together with many hours on the blogs and websites of churches doing similar things. The Internet is a wonderful tool for gaining an insight into the way that different congregations across the world work. Some of the most creative congregations are to be found in Australia and New Zealand. More about that in a future blog.

I am still chewing over The Shaping of Things to Come. One of the authors, Michael Frost is a really gritty Aussie. He writes and speaks in a way which is often deliberately provocative! If you would like to hear him in action, I have found a series of his talks which can be downloaded here.

DM

a mad weekend

It was great to welcome Karen Hutchison and her MAD Team to Inverness over the weekend. After a very successful concert at CCC on Saturday night, the team shared in the morning service at Hilton and were a big hit, with their dynamic singing and their very contemporary stories of what God was doing in their lives. Some of the team took time to share with the younger children in the Sunday Club, and by all accounts made a big impression.

Sunday evening, was a memorable time for both CCC and Hilton. A nearly full church at CCC worshipped together and experienced a more extended reportoire from MAD which included Dance and Beatboxing as well as some very moving and encouraging testimonies from members of the team.

Thank you Karen for taking the MAD Team so far north. Please continue to pray for them as they prepare to go on Mission trips to the Ukraine and Rwanda this summer.

MAD ON TOUR

Tonight, Karen Hutchison's team from Bristol, NGM are doing a concert at CCC (doors open at 7, cost £3). Tomorrow, NGM are also sharing in the morning service at Hilton (10.30am) and a joint service with CCC on the Sunday night (6pm).

CHURCH CAFE UPDATE

The talk this evening by John Drane was superb. Hopefully Doda Dennis who was also there will blog about it soon.

I wrote earlier about seeing the notice about Cafe Church at Crown Church. I spoke to some folk from Crown Church this evening about it. This is not a one off Service, but the regular shape of worship every Sunday at Crown Church. After an opening time of worship, the congregation have an option between a more traditional service or a cafe style interactive service. It's great to hear of such innovative and creative thinking taking place in Inverness.

DM

Cafe Church

Walking into town yesterday, I noticed the following sign on the front of Crown Church.

Cafe Church at 11am, Sunday.

For those of us who have been around Inverness for a while, the notion of Crown Church having a Cafe Service at its Sunday morning service is both amazing and exciting. It is great to see on this Pentecost weekend, that there is a wind of change across many of the churches in Inverness. The Cafe service is being led by John Drane who is speaking tonight and on Saturday morning in St John's Episcopal Chuch. The sessions will be well worth going to , if you have time.

DM

Playing Video Games

Here's an interesting article on recent research done by the BBFC on gaming and trends within the software industry.

Colm

AND LIVERPOOL LOST ANYWAY!

I am not the greatest football fan in the world, but it's a tough call when the choice is between the Champions League Final and an evening of worship, and prayer for the many world mission links we have. The following morning, I can write with conviction that even if Liverpool had won, the time of worship and prayer was a much more enriching experience. For those reading from afar, the 50 plus folk present, prayed for friends in Nepal, Papua New Guinea and New Zealand, Peru and the USA, not forgetting the Prime Minister elect, Gordon Brown, who has done a great deal to alleviate debt in the developing world. The evening was led by our World Missions Group. Different members of the WMG introduced items for prayer, and then we prayed in many dfferent ways, including a time when we were all invited to pray out loud at the same time. This was something the McPhee family experienced as part of worship in PNG. We also had some really special times of praise ably led by Murray McCheyne and his music group. The day of worship training really has made a difference to the atmosphere of expectation in these times of worship. Before I knew it, it was 9.25pm (nearly 2 hours had passed in what seemed like 1 hour!) and the final whistle went in Athens as I walked in through my front door. Liverpool lost anyway! These joint times of prayer take place on an occasional basis and there will be another one in early September.
DM

SIMPLY CHRISTIAN

If you are looking for a book which summarises the relevance of the Bible and the Christian story for the contemporary world, I would encourage you to have a look at Simply Christian by Tom Wright. It has been described as being A Mere Christianity for a new generation. Wright makes the case for the Christian faith from the ground up, assuming that the reader is starting from the beginning with no predisposition to and perhaps even some negativity toward religion in general and Christianity in particular. This book, written in a lively and accessible style, would be an ideal guide for seekers and doubters as well as believers.

DM

Proverb of the Day

"The world of the generous gets larger and larger,
The world of the stingy gets smaller and smaller"
Proverbs 11 v 24 (Message)

Hope you are inspired to more generosity today.

Exercise your Gifts

One of the challenges faced by any congregation is that of encouraging everybody to exercise their God given gifts. In an average congregation in Scotland, one third of the membership do the bulk of the work. This leaves two thirds of an average congregation under employed. We are keen to broaden the base of service as much as we possibly can, and to that end we have added an extra session on gifts for our new members. We had the first session on gifting last Sunday afternoon, and it was led by Richard Gibbons. The 90 minutes flew past, as the 12 present reflected, among other things, on the areas of life which gave them most fulfilment and the way that people who knew them well would describe them. One of the most striking aspects of the time together was the way that a whole variety of skills and interests emerged during the conversations which took place. Just by spending time together in fellowship and listening to one another, all sorts of possibilities emerge for encouraging the exercising of our gifts. The 90 minutes together proved to be very worthwhile and we will be running this session again after the summer.

DM

Alpha

An Equip and Refresh Day for Alpha is taking place at the Barn Church this Saturday.

Alpha 'on' Big Brother


This is Britain's first ever Christian television advertisement. It will run 30 times on E4 in September, at about the same time Big Brother is running, and coinciding directly with the BB final.

DM

Daddy Kid Camp

We have now booked a camp site for 14-16th September 2007. This should be a great weekend. Come along for an adventure with your kids. To find out more or to book a place, speak to Alan Brown (715720) or Kevin McPhee (239807)

CAR BOOT SALE

Are you aware of surplus items around your home which you could do with getting rid of? What about trying to sell them at a Car Boot Sale!

Culduthel Christian Centre are hosting a Car Boot Sale in their carpark on Saturday, 2nd June from 9am to 12 noon. The cost per trader is £6 and the funds raised will support a young volunteer from CCC who is going on a workparty to Peru in October.

"We arrived in Scotland with only 4 suitcases, filled with clothes, keepsakes and pictures..."

Those on the trip to Peru in 2005 with the Vine Trust will recall with affection our translator Kathryn Rojas. Those with shorter memories will remember that on Sunday 13 May Kathryn was in our church along with Paul & Marty Clark and Willie Macpherson. Along with her husband Elmer and sons Kevin and Sammy Kathryn left her job with SU Peru moved to Aberdeen, Scotland in April. Kathryn has been engaged by two churches in Aberdeen to work in their family project whilst Elmer is seeking employment. Click here to read their latest prayer letter. Don't just read it though - turn it into prayer!
MM

A MISSIONAL CHURCH

It is necessary for the Church to rethink its stance entirely and to become a missionary church within the West. (Martin Robinson)

This week, I have been reading an outstanding book about mission called THE SHAPING OF THINGS TO COME. It is written from an Australian perspective, and it sums up the very real quandry that the Church in the west faces today.

This is a time when the need for, and relevance of, the gospel has seldom been greater, but the relevance of the Church has seldom been less. (Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch.)

During the past year, our Outreach team have been grappling with these kind of issues. How can we be better equiped individually and as a congregation to "give a reason for the hope that is within us?" How can we move from being a church which is primarily pastoral in character to one which has mission at its heart?

Tomorrow, the Outreach Team will be playing a prominent part in our worship services.

At 10.30am, the service will have an evangelistic flavour to it, with some of the team sharing their faith stories.

At 6.30pm, we will be having our monthly Impact Cafe. This is an initiative aimed at seeking to create a service with a very different feel,.We hope this will be helpful to folk beyond those who come to our regular services. So far, we have found that a lot of our own young people have found it very attractive.

I recently found the following speech by Bono on u tube. I wonder when the church in the west will exhibit in its outreach and evangelism, the kind of passion that Bono has for the poor? The last minute of the speech is quite electrifying!



DM

Standing at the fault lines

Christian prayer is about standing at the fault lines, being shaped by the Jesus who knelt in Gethsemane, groaning in travail, holding heaven and earth together like someone trying to tie two pieces of rope with people tugging at the other ends to pull them apart.
(Tom Wright)

At Hilton Church, we seek to stand at the fault lines in many different ways. This Wednesday (23rd), we are going to share in a time of worship and prayer in the church for an hour from 7.30pm. We have many friends across the world, some of them you will have read about in this blog. For one hour, we will seek to pray for them together. Why not come along?

DM

Rocky Road

Click here for a newsletter from Laurence and Mairi, together with an article on click here Caroline Naturinda, one girl among many who has been helped through friends financial support. If you would like to support the project, you can click on this link.

Teenagers! What every parent has to know

We note that Rob Parsons is launching his new book soon. For those parents facing these challenging years, this book may well be a very good investment! Click here for more details and for a video introduction to the book

Another chance to hear Paul Clark

If you missed Paul speaking at the weekend or would like the chance to listen again then click here.

FEED YOUR SOUL

Leonard Sweet is one of the outstanding writers of our time. I heard him speaking at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre at a CWW event in 2005. He speaks as well as he writes. This week I have been reading Jesus drives me crazy! I’ve just put the book down, and I wanted to record how helpful books can be in terms of inspiring us in our lives.

The blurb says,

“Jesus drives me Crazy! challenges you to make the upside-down wisdom of God your own, inspiring you to live an extraordinary Christian life, that does not conform to the world, but transforms the world.”

Sweet is the master of the quotable quote and his books are full of wisdom from others.

“If I had known what it would be like to have it all, I might have settled for less”
(Humorist Lily Tomlin.)

‘The challenge of the church in the 21st century is to make itself less of an institution and more of a community; less a place that asks ‘What you can do for us?’ and more a place that asks ‘What can we do for you?’ less a place focused on better facilities and more a place focused on faith upgrades; less led by people prone to call a meeting than by people prone to start a conversation.’ (LS)

Jean MacLellan runs our Church library. Why not take a look at the wide range of books which are available to borrow,while you are having a coffee after our service on Sunday mornings.

DM

1000 hits for the Hilton Church Blog!

When we launched the blog in March we wondered about what kind of response it would generate. Tonight we note that we have now had 1000 hits. Given that most folk have only been aware of the blog for under 1 month, we are encouraged to see such interest. (40-50 hits per day!) Our main aim to to publicise the breadth of what is happening in the lives of people linked to Hilton Church. It has been good to see such a variety of contributions from near and far. The success of the blog is really down to encouraging people like you to take a few minutes every once in a while to send Stuart an email with details of something you have been involved in or perhaps notice of a forthcoming event. We would love to hear from you.

Jean Vanier

There was a good number present from Hilton Church at the opening of the new workshop for L'arche, Inverness on 28th April.

We received a letter this week from Cait McCullagh at L'arche, which contained the following thought provoking article about a recent visit by Jean Vanier, the founder of L'arche, to Saughton Prison in Edinburgh. Click here to download. John also was interviewed on Radio Scotland during his visit and shared an insight into his own life motives when he stated, "To become profoundly human is not to have power but to grow in love."

Christian Life and Work

How do you make the connection between your Christian faith and your work?

William Diehl, the sales manager of a major steel company writes challengingly about the gap between the secular and the sacred in church circles:

"In almost 30 years of my professional career, my church has never once sugggested that there be any type of accounting of my on the job ministry to others. My church has never once offered to improve those skills which could make me a better minister, nor has it ever asked if I needed any kind of support in what I was doing. There has never been an inquiry into the types of ethical decisions I must face, or whether I seek to communicate the faith to co-workers. I have never been in a congregation where there was any type of public affirmation of a ministry in my career. In short, I must conclude that my church really doesn't have the least interest whther r how I minister in my daily work."

These are hard hitting words and should give every congregation, especially its leaders, plenty to think about. To be fair, these issues are increasingly being addressed by churches today, and if the quote strikes a chord with you, you might want to be at CCC tomorrow night for LIVE WORK! LIVE LIFE!

DON'T LOSE YOUR SENSE OF WONDER

“Whoever is devoid of the capacity to wonder, whoever remains unmoved, whoever cannot contemplate or know the deep shudder of the soul in enchantment, might just as well be dead for he has already closed his eyes upon life.”

Albert Einstein

Weekend to Remember

Paul and Marty Clark together with Willie MacPherson have just left for Edinburgh. It has been so special to have them all with us in Inverness, even if it was just for 24 hours. Last night, about 80 folk gathered to hear Paul at CCC. It was frustrating that more folk weren't there, but we made very effort to publicise the event, so I think we just have to be at peace that we did our best.

This morning Paul spoke to a packed congregation at Hilton Church. Paul is a master story teller and for over 30 minutes, he had his listeners entranced with one story after another. The event at CCC was filmed and this morning's service was recorded. We will make every effort to make these events available on our website within the next few days.

Church, Culture and Mission in the 21st Century

John and his wife Olive, have led weekends at Hilton Church on 2 occasions during the past decade. John is a wonderfully stimulating thinker and speaker, and if you have the time to go to this event, we are sure you will find it very worthwhile.
Friday 25 May (7.30 pm) and Saturday 26 May (10.00 am) at St. John's Episcopal Church, Southside Road, Inverness Professor John Drane will be speaking on Church, Culture and Mission in the 21st Century, in two sessions. Come to both if you can, or just one if that is all that is possible. The subject matter covers key issues for Christians and the Christian church. John Drane is a Baptist minister who was most recently professor of practical theology at Aberdeen University and is now a professor at Fuller Seminary in California. He has written very widely on the challenges of modern mission in a shifting culture and with competing understandings of spirituality. Part of what Drane says is:
The Christian church is in decline all over the western world. Yet people today are more conscious than ever before of the need for a ‘spiritual’ dimension to life. As a Christian, I am concerned about this - though as a scholar of contemporary culture, I don’t need to look far to understand the reasons for it. In my best-selling book The McDonaldization of the Church I suggested that Christianity has become over-rationalized in a way that prevents the message of Jesus from being heard by today’s people. I believe that without radical reform, church as we know it has no future. But that need not be the end of the story. All over the world, the core values of Jesus’ teaching are being rediscovered and new forms of church are emerging in the most unlikely places. Committed and courageous leadership can make a difference, but most church leaders have not been trained or equipped for this. While no one individual can accomplish this by themselves, after thirty years of working in theological education and in active Christian ministry, I think I have learned a thing or two about this challenge.

To Scotland from Peru

How quickly time flies. Tomorrow, Paul and Marty Clark will be with us all the way from Peru. (Paul is the gentleman standing to the left of Willie MacpHerson, as Willie, makes an impassioned plea to Peruvian business people to support the project.)
We're really looking forward to having Paul and his wife Marty with us at Hilton on Sunday morning, and at CCC on Saturday night from 7.30pm. Paul is the visionary that has worked so hard to bring about a ministry in Peru that not only feeds the souls of children but also feeds their bodies.

Karen Hutchison reports from NGM, Bristol

Hi everyone,

So I have been at New Generation Music and Mission (NGM) since last September and its been great. NGM is a christian charity, based in Thornbury just outside Bristol, that uses music and the arts to reach young people. I am on the Mission Arts and Discipleship (MAD) course which is a year out where I have had lots of training in singing and dancing. NGM has also taught me so much about God and my faith. I have seen God move in amazing ways and touch the lives of so many people while on mission. God has also given me revelations of His love and let me see a glimpse of His glory. Our team is so excited at what God has been doing in us and we have the oppurtunity to share it with our home churches. Yes, we are driving all the way to Invernes!! We are coming up on the 26th of May to do an evening concert at CCC (doors open at 7, cost £3). We are hoping to see God influence and inspire non-Christians and Christians through what we have to bring. We are also involved in the morning service at Hilton on the 27th and a joint service with CCC on the Sunday night. As well as sharing with our home churches we hope through our tour to raise money for our missions in the summer. In July I am going with some of my team to Rwanda, while the others go to Ukraine. We are all really excited to see how God is going to use us and we are trusting in faith that He wil provide the finance. So hopefully I will see you all over the 26th and 27th of May. It would be great if you could pray for us: for safety travelling (its a long way!), that we would see life's changed even through our short time in Inverness and that God's hand will be over the whole weekend. It is only through God's strength that we will see the miracles.

love Karen

Kirk Session Update

The Kirk Session at its meeting last night made the decision, in principle, to aim towards growing the size of the congregation/s in the coming years. The Kirk Session has set up a small working group under the leadership of Jamie Grant to plan towards the establishment of a second morning service beginning in October. This is a significant undertaking for the congregation and the working group would value your prayers as it considers how best to proceed. If you would like your thoughts about the shape of possible new services to be taken into account, please email Duncan. The working group will be sharing together over the coming weeks and reporting back to the Kirk Session in mid June. We also would appreciate emails from anyone interested in helping with starting a new service from scratch. There will be numerous opportunities to serve and share your gifts and talents. You will hear a lot more about this exciting new development in the coming weeks.

DMacP

Live Work, Live Life!

Care for the Family's event Love Work, Live Life! is coming to Inverness on 15 May.

Rather than encourage people to leave their jobs and enter ‘full-time Christian work’, this new event will help you re-ignite a passion for work, and discover how you can be sure you’re in the right job. Come to find out the real power of working as a Christian all the time.

Click here to see a video clip of Low Work, Live Life. Remember to bring along your friends, family and church so that they too can be inspired and encouraged!
Tickets cost £6. The event is at Culduthel Christian Centre, where tickets can be purchased in advance, or Alternatively, call us on (01506) 846476.
Come to Love Work, Live Life! and discover what God has in store for you in the place where we spend most of our lives – work!
I look forward to seeing you there

Presenter of ‘Love Work, Live Life!’

Alpha

Alpha Courses have been run regularly at Hilton Church over the last 10 years. It is a very exciting experience to share in a course where people are often discovering the reality of what the Christian faith is all about for the first time. We are always keen to hear from folk in the congregation who would like to be involved in helping with a course, either as a leader or a helper. If you would like more information email Barry. There are regular training events to help people who are sharing in alpha courses as leaders and helpers. We received a notice this morning about one of these training events.

The Highland Alpha Team are hosting a one day conference "Equip & Refresh" at The Barn Church, Culloden on 26th May 2007 between 09.30 and 17.00. It will be led by Alpha Scotland ( Fiona Marks and her team). The day is intended for those wishing to hold Alpha Courses, lead, help or even those who wish to know more! The cost is £5 per head to cover refreshments and picnic lunch.

It would be great if you could spread the word. You can download more info and application form here or you can phone Colin Baillie on Inverness 792107.

DMacP

Kirk Session

The Kirk Session meets tonight. The Kirk Session at Hilton Church has around 12 elders which is a very small number compared to most congregations. In our congregation, we have five ministry teams which lead the core areas of Ministry - Evangelism, Discipleship, Service, Administration and Worship. The majority of the work is initiated and carried out by the various teams, with the Kirk Session having an overall leadership role in terms of the direction the church moves in.

Tonight, we will be looking at a variety of issues including a proposal to consider more carefully how eco friendly our congregation is. The main item for consideration will be centred around the future shape of the congregation/s at Hilton. We have a relatively small worship space (300 max) and for many years we have been operating at near capacity every Sunday. We have been considering the possibility of establishing a second morning service for a considerable period of time. If we are going to do this in the autumn, some decisions in this direction will need to be made tonight.

Greetings from down under

Thank you for all the emails we have received from people. The update to the church website looks great and the blog is a useful tool to keep in touch. We are both well and settling into life in Wellington, New Zealand. We are renting a flat overlooking Wellington Harbour in an area called Brooklyn, about 30 minutes walk from work. there are still many places we have not been and wish to go, but we have only been here Laurence is really enjoying his job, although Carolyn is finding hers quite challenging at the moment. We have both travelled with work and on our own to various parts of New Zealand, although 6 months!
Wellington has been a good choice of location. It is central to a variety of landscapes, from tropical coastline to volcanoes, mountains and bush only a few hours away. We climbed a 1100m peak called Kapakapanui a few weeks ago, which would have been a Munro in Scotland, but here looked like a little foothill! There is also a wealth of entertainment and hundreds of cafés selling flat whites, short blacks and other mystifying types of coffee (some people say Wellington is powered by coffee beans).
We spent some time looking for a church that we were comfortable with, and in the process shared with a wide range of denominations. It was encouraging to see how many different ways the Lords word is being delivered, encompassing many different tastes and background, including a number of rock n roll type churches. We have finally found Karori Baptist Church (KBC), which has a friendly family atmosphere and similar to Hilton in many ways. KBC is keen to outreach into the community and then beyond. Now that we are more settled we are trying to identify our role to make this happen.

Hope all is well with you,
Love from Laurence and Carolyn

The Dawkins Letters

The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins created plenty stir in the media when it was published last year. David Robertson who is minister of St Peter's Free Church in Dundee wrote an open letter to Richard Dawkins which was posted on his church website. This, somehow, found its way onto Dawkin's own website - where it generated the largest response, before or since.

David Robertson will speak about his new book, The Dawkins Letters, in the Inverness Borders bookstore on Friday 11 May at 18:30. He will answer questions on his book and on Richard Dawkins' book, The God Delusion, to which it responds. Richard Dawkins claims that Christianity does more harm than good and wants it banished. David Robertson agrees with Dawkins where appropriate but does not hesitate to point out some of the flaws in his thinking. The event in Borders is open to all. Come and enjoy a latte and a stimulating discussion. Free tickets are available. Please Smithton Culloden if you would like to get your hands on some.

The Unhurried Life

One of the suggestions in the Lent study Book "The Life You've Always Wanted" in the chapter The Unhurried Life was to set aside a day to listen to God. Our home group set off on Friday in glorious sunshine for Pluscarden Abbey just outside Elgin. There was a real sense of expectation as we walked through the grounds and entered the building. The beautiful stained glass windows, the short service of psalms sung by the monks, the sense of peace, picnic lunch on the grass surrounded by birdsong, the opportunity for quiet reflection and prayer and the opportunity to share in fellowship and grow together as we journey together made this a special day. John Ortberg suggests a day set aside in this way is "your gift to God, but even more, it is a gift God wants to give you." Withdrawing from activity in order to seek direction or renewed energy, to listen to God and to have a sense of healing is highly recommended.

Audrey

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

churches with websites are more likely to grow...
...so Tim Bednar reports

'Til text us do part

Time-strapped couples with only 10 minutes a day to talk to each other are increasingly resorting to emails and texts to communicate reports Lesley Thomas in the Telegraph. According to a new poll, there's nothing unusual about such a set-up. The survey of women found that most have so little time for face-to-face contact with their men folk that one in five uses text, others use email and the Luddites/old romantics use Post-it notes on the fridge to keep in touch. Typically, couples have 10 minutes a day (wow, as much as that?) to talk to one another and they spend nine of those discussing their children.

Relationship counsellors warn against over-reliance on technology, but I like being in a broadband relationship. I think we should congratulate ourselves for finding a way around the lack of human contact involved in being a dual-income, time-poor household. Without electronic messaging, I don't see how we'd keep in touch at all.

Email rows are far more satisfying than the shouty variety. You can think before you speak, allowing yourself that extra moment to come up with your best put-downs and one-liners. I know one couple who have text fights while under the same roof so as not to upset their children. Another friend says she flirts with her husband by email - although by the time she gets home from work, she is usually too tired to make good on any of her frisky promises.

Relationship psychologist Susan Quilliam says: "Lots of busy couples communicate by email and text, but you have to be very careful to make sure this isn't the only way you speak to one another. I do approve of the idea of sending a kiss or a loving message by text. It's just the sort of thing to oil the wheels for a couple with too many demands on their time."

The car insurance company that commissioned the survey found that much verbal communication was saved for car journeys and concluded, of course, that this was no bad thing. Said a spokeswoman: "The car seems to be one haven where couples can chat with one another and discuss their relationship without too many distractions."

Colm

PRAY FOR THE CHURCH IN SMYRNA

The following link http://faithwalk.wordpress.com contains a sobering account of the reality of persecution and martyrdom for the sake of Christ today in the world. This account of martrydom comes from Turkey, a country which is currently seeking membership of the European Community. The BBC report can be downloaded here.

"Remember....those who are ill treated as if you yourselves were suffering." (Hebrews 13 v3)

Laurence and Mairi

We are delighted to receive news together with some great pictures from Laurence and Mairi working in Kabale, Uganda.
Laurence and Mairi are setting up a system in Rugarama Health Centre in Uganda, so that uninterrupted power can be provided. Their hospital has babies in incubators, and operating theatre, and uninterrupted power is critical. A previous collection from Hilton Church went a long way towards the cost of the necessary battery & inverter. However £1600 is still required to pay it off. If you feel this is something you’d like to support, and if you can afford to give, please email Ken Walker.

We're baith daein' awa'.

In many ways our wee health centre is like a family, so it is good when everyone is pulling in the same direction (this seldom happens in practice.)
The remaining batteries for the inverter system arrived just at the weekend, so we shall be busy installing that over the next couple of days. Essentially it will be there to 'fill in the gaps' when mains power fails - though it will also take over if mains voltage goes too high or low. All our life-support equipment (mostly oxygen concentrators and 2 incubators) are connected directly to the inverter circuit. They should receive an uninterrupted power supply (until the batteries are depleted.) When the mains returns the inverter becomes a charger and charges the batteries. We may consider increasing the battery bank so that it will be able to cover longer power outages and will conserve the life of all the batteries. We do have generators, but they are problematic. They have to be started at all times of day or night, often there is no fuel and they require quite a lot of maintenance; several people have died in our health centre because of lack of petrol at night. Our new system should be quiet, seamless and maintenance free. Mairi's hectic schedule at the HC has meant that we have decided to try and get away for a while every month and a half or so just to clear her wee head. For me, I manage to visit other hospitals from time to time, so I manage to get some touring in anyway. Life here continues to be colourful, frustrating, beautiful, challenging but never dull.

Many blessings...Laurence

PO Box 480, Kabale, UGANDA

Phone: 0782 246368 +256 (0) 382 275407

The Vine Trust

Pictured above are Willie MacPherson, Director of the Vine Trust (with the beard) and Paul Clark, Director SU Peru. This photo was taken by Duncan when they were visiting a new site called Chosica which the Vine Trust is hoping to develop on the outskirts of Lima.

In 11 days time, Paul Clark is coming to Inverness. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity to listen to 73 year old Paul's extraordinary story. Paul's story telling will touch your heart and re-new a sense of God's ability to do amazing things through his people. Please make the effort to come along to Culduthel Christian Centre at 7.30pm on Saturday, 12th May.

Baby Aaron Connor

News of another joyful arrival. Robbie and Tracey Ross have been worshipping with us at Hilton Church for the last year. Robbie has just phoned with the news that Tracey had a baby boy at 9am this morning in Raigmore Hospital. The baby weighes 7lb 12oz and is called Aaron Connor. The creche at Hilton on Sunday mornings is a busy place, and we are delighted that it is going to have several new members in the coming weeks.

GOD IN THE ORDINARY

Stuart MacQuarrie preached an excellent sermon on Sunday evening about the reality of God being present in our every day hum drum lives. Jesus called his disciples while they were mending their fishing nets. I hope that people will feed back to Stuart their discoveries of Gods presence in their lives during this week. It is always good to know what impact the services have in terms of encouragement in our daily lives.

The local church can hopefully serve as a hub in terms of worship and mission, building up its people to serve in the world. For the church to be effective in this calling requires good leadership. The Church is always looking for gifted people to serve the church both locally and nationally, and the poster which we received this week outlines a process for considering whether this is something you may be called to.

DM