Lausanne Capetown

This will be my last post for some time as I leave on Wednesday for the Lausanne Capetown Conference. This post captures the magnitude of the conference. I think it will be a once in a life time experience, and I look forward to telling you all about it in due course. The only downside I noted in this morning's email from the conference organisers were their words regarding dress code - "business casual or national dress!" At least it's not "robes required" as the invitations from Presbytery used to state. This was always a bit of a problem for me, as I don't possess any robes. I suppose I can go out and buy some slighty smarter clothes than I ordinary wear before I leave tomorrow!

Thank you

After a lectionary reading which highlighted the importance of saying "thank you", I want to say a massive "thank you" to Simon Varwell who performed heroics today with our visuals. The internet went down, so all my various clips on 10 10 10 were nolonger available. Thankfully we were able to go to the Lighthouse next door for internet access, and download the clips onto a USB and then take them back to the church. I could have done without that stress minutes before the service, and without Simon's knowledge and skill the outcome would have been very different.

10 10 10 - what's your promise?

10 10 10

Ceildh Bands

I was at Jodie & Muir's wedding reception last night. The Band for the ceildh who are called RhythmnReel were quite outstanding. There are certainly no shortage of good ceildh bands around these days. Skipinish and Meantime are two other bands which come to mind from various events over the years.

Wedding

Congratulations to Muir and Jody who were married at Cawdor Church this afternoon. Jody's late grandmother Evelyn was a much loved elder within the congregation.

TED TALKS

I came across some TED talks last night, and was impressed by the quality of them. I was also struck by the fact that these talks have a maximum length of 18 minutes. Why?

It’s long enough to be serious and short enough to hold people’s attention..... ....By forcing speakers who are used to going on for 45 minutes to bring it down to 18, you get them to really think about what they want to say. What is the key point they want to communicate? It has a clarifying effect. It brings discipline.

I'm wondering whether this is a discipline we need to follow in relation to our preaching? How long can the average person comfortably listen to a speaker? I don't think it would be much more than 18 minutes.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu ends public career

In a week when my thoughts are turning to South Africa, here's a short film on the life of Desmond Tutu who is bowing out of public life at the age of 79.

LAUSANNE CAPETOWN 2010

Jamie Grant and I are both heading to Capetown for the Lausanne Conference next week. I don't know about any of the other 5000 participants, but I have found it very difficult to make time to read through all the various papers. I've just spent an hour reading through the programme alone! Chris Wright (above) gives a helpful commentary on the Lausanne Covenant. In his blog he writes about his hopes for Capetown.

Before we go out to the world, we must come back to the Lord
Before we try to change the world, we must change our own hearts and our ways (Jer. 7:3-8)
Before we take the words of the gospel to the world, we must take with us words of confession to God (Hos. 14:1-2).
Before we get off our seats to seek the lost, we must get on our knees to seek the Lord.

I have now managed to read through most of the papers for days 1-3, and work out which ones I am going to focus on. There are some really outstanding papers.

Youth weekend away

Very encouraging to hear such positive reports about the youth weekend away in Altnacriche. We had 33 teenagers away with a further 7 not able to go for one reason or another. I don't think many of us realised we had that number of youth in our congregation! I also heard rave reviews about the catering, and especially about the Sunday dinner. A big thank you to Margaret Lamond and Sandra MacKenzie for all their hard work in the kitchen, and to all the leaders who helped to make it such an enjoyable weekend.

Sunday morning

An early start to Sunday morning as usual, putting the finishing touches to today's service. We are going to be thinking about the place of lament within our lives. I think it may feel a bit quieter than normal at Hilton Church this morning as 33 of our youth along with Jonathan and some of the other leaders are away for the weekend in Aviemore. Over the years, we have generally had a pretty small number of teenagers at Hilton. It has been really encouraging over the past year to see very significant growth in this area, and to have such a large gathering of them heading away for the weekend.

fischy music

We had the great pleasure of welcoming Fischy Music (www.fischy.com) to Hilton and Cauldeen Primaries on Monday. This was an event organised by the Youth Project that was very well received by both schools, so much so that both assistant head-teachers voiced their hope to have them back in the near future.
Sandy Butler and Joanna Jeffries were the staff members and they engaged with the kids superbly. In Hilton they led a workshop for the p6 and 7s. They wrote a song with them exploring things they liked doing and exploring what it means to like themselves. After that, they lead a whole school concert which was great. It’s quite rare that the whole of Hilton Primary get together as they tend to separate their assemblies into junior and senior slots. So the atmosphere was great and, as always, Fischy Music did so much more than just sing some songs, boosting the children’s self-esteem and exploring and promoting their emotional, spiritual and social well-being.
The same format was employed in the afternoon at Cauldeen, this time with a workshop for the p1s and 2s. It was incredible to see how they could adapt their material for use with such a different age group than they’d had in the morning. The whole school concert there was a huge hit too.
In all it was a super day and I left Sandy and Joanna looking forward to doing the same thing all over again at Kinmylies and Muirtown Primaries the following day. It was a day the children and the teachers (who were jumping and dancing and clapping too) will not forget for a while.
Jonathan.