POST NUMBER 2000!

I have been noticing over the past few weeks that we have been approaching the 2000th post, and today is the day! The blog began in March 2007 as a means of keeping folk in the loop with the happenings around Hilton Church and generally highlighting other matters of interest. For the 2000th post, I want to highlight the plight of an Iranian pastor who today faces the very real threat of the death penalty for refusing to recant his Christian faith. You can read more about him here.Please pray for Pastor Nadarkhani, his family and legal team.

sunday evenings @ hilton

We hope to have the lighthouse cafe open on Sunday evenings for 7 weeks from 30th October, so we can increase the level of opportunities for service,fellowship, sharing and hospitality. We will probably experiment with 5-8pm and make some changes as we go along depending on how it all goes. To do this, we need volunteers to help with the lighthouse kitchen and serving drinks and cakes. Can you help. If you can, please email me at duncan@hiltonchurch.org.uk

We are also going to run a Christianity Explored Course (6.15pm - 7.30pm) To run this, I need a few folk who can be helpers on the course. If you have been a Christian for a year or two, or even a bit or much longer, I would love it if you would consider helping out on the course. Email me if you would like to help.

At the same time time as Christianity Explored, there will also be a course for those who want to go deeper into the Bible called Story Lines. This course will be led by Jamie Grant. The aim over the seven weeks will be to demystify the Bible and make it fun to read with the help of the Soul Survivor crew. Using Andy Croft and Mike Pilavachi’s book Storylines: Your Map to Understanding the Bible as the basis for our discussion. We will look at six of the Bible’s main themes – Jesus, Covenant, Presence, Kingdom, Salvation, Worship – to see how these key ideas help us make sense of the whole book.

On Sunday 30th October and 5th December, there will be 2 special sessions from 5-6pm led by Philip Noble. These events will be all age and everyone is welcome. The first will involve lots of Bubbles!

Sundays changing @ hilton & the lighthouse

You can read about some of the changes here and here. We hope to have the lighthouse cafe open on Sunday evenings for 7 weeks, so we can increase the level of opportunities for service,fellowship, sharing and hospitality. We will probably experiment with 5-8pm and make some changes as we go along depending on how it all goes.

To do this, we need volunteers to help with the lighthouse kitchen and serving drinks and cakes. Can you help. If you can, please email me at duncan@hiltonchurch.org.uk

We are also going to run a Christianity Explored Course (6.15pm - 7.30pm) which you can find out more about below. To run this, I need a few folk who can be helpers on the course. If you have been a Christian for a year or two, or even a bit or much longer, I would love it if you would consider helping out on the course. Email me if you would like to help.

new hq from scratch

MINISTRY IN THE WORK PLACE

I would highly recommend these events. I saw Mark Green in Capetown last year, and his talk was nothing short of inspirational.

Open Meeting with Mark Greene, Exec Director of LICC
Wednesday 2nd November
Kinmylies Church of Scotland 7.30pm
Event Free of Charge – donations welcome

Business Breakfast with Mark Greene
Thursday 3rd November. Waterside Hotel 8.30am
Booking is essential for this event and places are limited.
Costs £5 per head which includes hot breakfast roll and tea/coffee

info@alivefestival.co.uk

Mark has produced a number of workplace resources, notably Thank God it's Monday and the widely distributed Supporting Christians at Work - Without Going Insane. In addition, he has developed Christian Life and Work, a 6-part small group DVD resource, and edited Pocket Prayers for Work. He is also the writer and presenter of the Imagine DVD and, with Tracy Cotterell, the editor... of Let my People Grow - a collection of essays on whole-life disciple making. Most recently he edited and contributed sections to Trevor Cooling's LICC resource Supporting Christians in Education.

SLEEPERS WANTED!

In the past, I have been very successful in sourcing various items for the Lighthouse and Church through the blog, so I am enboldened to ask for something which might be a bit more challenging. For some time now, we have been speaking about getting railway sleepers for the Lighthouse car park, so we can zone the area more effectively for parking. If you have sleepers which are surplus to requirements or know of a source, could you let me know. Many thanks.

THE ART OF HEARING GOD

THE ART OF HEARING GOD a course by Streams Ministries International
October 27-29 INVERNESS, Kings Fellowship
A fantastic course for anyone who wants to increase their ability to hear from God through a solid biblical foundation. It can help grow in confidence, character and spiritual gifts and is strongly recommended for those interested in serving on mission teams
For booking and more info go to www.northatlanticdreams.net

10 YEARS IN AFRICA

Marsali Campbell (who is Laurence Phin's cousin) of Dwelling Places in Uganda visited us at Hilton about 18 months ago. She has just celebrated 10 years of service in Africa and you can Click Here to read her latest newsletter.

help needed

Our Lighthouse manager, Wendy Budge is in need of additional help during the 2 weeks of the October holiday. If you can help, even with a couple of hours during that time, she would be grateful if you could contact her in the Lighthouse 01463 224477.

street pastors

Street Pastors are looking for more volunteers … with a twist … in addition to our usual night-time work in the City Centre, and evening work in Merkinch and Hilton, we're also looking for people who want to volunteer for daytime work in the City Centre mid-week and/or Saturday.
AND we're looking for applicants for an Assistant Coordinator's post who will be based in the City Centre working with our volunteers and partners to help the wheels turn smoothly.
ALL of this is dependent on the outcome of a funding application we're waiting on, but we've been advised to start planning on the basis that we will get it. That will mean if the funding is approved we will be appointing an Assistant Coordinator in October, and training volunteers throughout November and early December for street work starting in January. So we need to be receiving interest NOW.

for more info -inverness@streetpastors.org.uk

NEW VINE TRUST HQ

After 9 years of operating from an HQ in Port Seton, the Vine Trust moves this week to a state of the art HQ in Leith, just next to Ocean Terminal. The Barge was formally opened by HRH Princess Anne yesterday afternoon. It has been a massive task for Willie MacPherson and his staff to pull off this amazing project. Carpets were being fitted right up until the last hour before the formal opening!

christianity explored

beginning @ the lighthouse at 6pm on 30th October for 7 weeks.

stuart farmes

Congratulation to Stuart Farmes who has been invited to become the minister of Pultneytown linked with Thrumster, in Wick. Stuart has been the probationer assistant at Hilton for the last 14 months, and will take up his new appointment in early November.

HTC GRADUATION

I attended the graduation ceremony at HTC yesterday afternoon. It was the 17th such ceremony for HTC, and the first as part of the new UHI. Hector Morrision, Principal of the College chaired the ceremony, and Jamie Grant, Vice Principal was also involved in the awards. Murray McCheyne is now Chairman of the Board of Governors, so he was also presenting awards. It was a day of celebration for Andrea Boyes and Scott MacRoberts who were both receiving their degrees.

property day pics

Some of the work done on the property day.

Property Day

We had a remarkably profitable property day yesterday. The weather was excellent, and we had over 40 volunteers who came at various points during the day. We completed painting the fences, re-painted rooms in the Lighthouse, tidied up all the paths and front garden, added more bark to the Lighthouse garden, re-felted a shed, prepared some windows for painting and gave a good deep clean to various parts of the building. There is still plenty to do, but we certainly made a significant dent in the list! A massive thank you to everyone who helped. As a church we perhaps need to reflect more deeply on how we can build in some time on a regular basis to keeping up with maintenance rather than organising occasional days like yesterday. I have already had some volunteers who have offered to maintain specific parts of the garden area which is great. From a personal perspective, the experience of working together throughout the day was very rich, and it's great to share in these kind of days together.

out of the box

Over the past few weeks we have been looking at the TRIANGLE LIFESHAPE. Today our focus was on the flow of mission outwards. As part of the Service, Chris Watt, shared about the growth and development of Out of the Box, a ministry he began after serving as a Childrens and Youth worker in the Church. It's great to see all that has been achieved over the past 2 years, and if you want to find out more, read here.

fresh expressions

an excellent talk on fresh expressions from Archbishop Rowan Williams here.

LIGHTHOUSE - more than a cafe!

I have just been into the Lighthouse, and the cafe is packed for lunch. There have been people coming and going all morning. It seems to me that what used to be a busy day, is now the every day life of the cafe. It's been an important lesson to me. Most community projects require a long period of time to develop, much longer than we might perhaps imagine. We have taken 3 years to reach this level. I think we will see things expanding substantially over the next period of time. To do this effectively we will need more staff and volunteers who have a heart to serve and share in what we believe is "...more than a cafe!" Eilidh has been working all summer, and has done an outstanding job,especially at times when we have struggled with low staff numbers. She is finishing today, and next month is going to New Zealand for a gap year. This leaves a significant gap in our staffing. If you would like to be a part of the future at the Lighthouse, here's the advert.

Discovery Cruising

For many years, Melville Paton has been leading cruises for Discovery Cruising around the west coast of Scotland. This week, Stephen (who is a Trustee) and Ingrid are on the final cruise before Emmaus is sold. I had 3 cruises on Emmaus, and like so many people, have wonderful memories of so many diffferent places I saw, not to mention the experience of sharing with a small group on a boat for a week.