The Blogging community mourns

This entry by Steve Taylor was a powerful reminder to me today of the way that community has evolved through the Christian blogging community. The blogs are full of tributes to bigbulkyanglican

CENTRE PAINTING

It's Wednesday night and we still have a real challenge to get all the painting done by the weekend. We have had good sized teams out during the evenings, but the numbers appearing to help during the day have been too small. The picture is of Brian Gunn who was working away on his own this afternoon. If you are reading this, and you have any time between now and Friday night, please take your rollers and paint brushes and trays and come and give us a hand.

SOULED OUT

Tickets for the event on the 1st of November at the Iron Works will go on general release from this Friday, the 12th of September. Tickets that are ordered on-line through the website link or via the box office (0871 789 4173) will have the usual Iron Works Fee booking fee applied but tickets collected in person at the venue in Academy Street, Inverness will not be subject to the booking fee. There is no charge for the event itself. Tickets will be limited to a maximum of 6 tickets per person & anyone wanting to enquire about group bookings should contact myself on 07919 066 139 or Dave Eglinton on 07720057522. We expect tickets to go quickly & once they are gone they are gone so would urge people to book early to avoid disappointment.

Gandhi's seven deadly sins

Mohandas Gandhi, one of the most influential figures in modern social and political activism, considered these traits to be the most spiritually perilous to humanity…...

Wealth without Work
Pleasure without Conscience
Science without Humanity
Knowledge without Character
Politics without Principle
Commerce without Morality
Worship without Sacrifice

On Sunday night Jamie Grant was giving us an insight into the backgound of the minor prophet Amos. It was a call for us to consider the integrity of our lives. Some of the observations which Amos makes are reflected above, and they are still a challenge to us today.

A good question to ask!

Before I die I want to......

ANOTHER GOOD DAY ON THE HILL

Just back from an outstanding days hillwalking near Spean Bridge today. It is great to be able to access such beautiful places so close to home. Here is a picture of Iain Macritchie at the bothy, just before we begin to ascend to the top of Stob Ban behind.

SIX MEN

At this mornings service, I read some excerpts from a book which tells the stories of 6 men, who have encountered God in their lives. Men, in general, tend to be less involved in the Church than women. The author of the book was keen to explore this phenomena and to simply listen to the stories of various men who have encountered God. The book is available on amazon.

ROK OUT!

This afternoon, Iain Ross and I dropped in to say a big "thank you" to the magnificent team from Rok Construction who have done such a great job on the new Cafe and Centre. What a whirlwind of activity the summer has been. Rok only moved onto the site on Monday, 16th June. They were finishing off the landscaping at the front today. On Monday our own volunteer painters move in. We hope to have all the painting done by next Friday.

NELSON MANDELA ON LEADERSHIP

Nelson Mandela is widely regarded as the most revered leader of the late 20th century. Today I read a Time article in which he laid out his 8 principles of leadership. You can read the whole article here

1.Courage is not the absence of fear — it’s inspiring others to move beyond it

2.Lead from the front — but don’t leave your base behind

3.Lead from the back — and let others believe they are in front
4.Know your enemy — and learn about his favorite sport
5.Keep your friends close — and your rivals even closer
6.Appearances matter — and remember to smile
7.Nothing is black or white
8.Quitting is leading too

Southern Cross

Over the past 3 years, about 80 people linked to Hilton Church have worked on street childrens projects in Peru along with the Vine Trust. A pivotal figure in all of this work is Paul Clark, head of SU Peru. I discovered today that he has published a book about the street childrens work. The book is available on Amazon.

CAFE CHURCH

There is a lot of talk about emerging church in Scotland today. Our cafe services together with initiatives like the new Centre are all aimed at seeking to provide space for new expressions of faith and worship to emerge. It is clear that many traditional expressions of worship nolonger connect with the majority of people today. Rob & Gwen Barlow have been a big factor in this emerging church development at Hilton. Rob came to do a 6 month placement with us in 2005 and stayed for 3 years! As well as doing his probationary year at the Church of Scotland in Beauly, he is also doing all the required academic training for ministry at HTC. He has a busy year ahead of him. In his "spare time", along with Gwen, he is also working on a number of iniatives linked to cafe church. You can read all about it by looking at their very impressive website SERMON VIDEOS.

BABY IONA UPDATE

Iona is continuing to make steady progress. If her condition continues to improve it is hoped that by the weekend she may be able to move from Intensive Care to the High Dependency Unit. We are grateful to God for all his many answers to our prayers. We continue to remember Jonathan and Susie in our prayers, aware of how exhausting it must be for them to still be at Yorkhill after nearly 3 weeks.

"THE REV" STEWART MACKAY

Congratulations to Stewart MacKay. He has successfully completed his probationary period at Loanhead Parish Church. He plans to spend a next year at Cornhill Scotland. He is then considering going into army chaplaincy.

HTC EVENING CLASSES

Evening Classes
Old Testament
Wednesday 17th September (for 10 weeks)
7.30 – 9 pm
Kingsview Christian Centre,
Balnafettack Road, Inverness
Tutor: Len Cazaly
Cost: £60
Covering some of key themes of the Old Testament, set in their historical and cultural context, these classes will help you to understand the links between the Old Testament story of God's people and the New Testament story of God's revelation in Jesus Christ.

These classes are aimed at anyone who simply wants to find out more about the Old Testament. Not heavy going - no exams or essays!

This is a non-certificated course. Anyone wishing to gain a qualification from their studying is encouraged to enquire about HTC’s Access Course in Christian Theology or BA Theological Studies degree.

To find out more please contact Marina at:
Highland Theological College UHI, High Street, Dingwall, Ross-shire
Tel: 01349 780000 www.htc.uhi.ac.uk htc@htc.uhi.ac.uk

Stanley Hauerwas

An important discipline for me is to read regularly and widely. Over the past month I have been slowly reading THE JESUS WAY by Eugene Petersen. At the close of his book, Petersen recommends a number of writers who can help us to decern the Way. One of them is Hauerwas. I don't like to buy books before doing a little research on the writers and google is now a great way of accessing a wide range of material about most writers. In doing my research, I found a quite remarkable lecture by Hauerwas called Abortion, Theologically understood. The article is quite lengthy, but it introduced me to a completely different way of looking at abortion and a variety of other important topics. If anyone else reads the article, I would be interested to know your response.

Duncan

LIFE WITH GOD

It is 50 years in 2008, since the sanctuary was built and opened. In the same year we will be opening a new purpose built centre and cafe which we hope will be a great asset in serving the community of Hilton in Christ's name. But we don't want the 50 years simply to be marked by bricks and mortar. We also want to spend some time focussing on the core features of our Christian faith and the call that Jesus makes upon our lives to follow him. What does it mean to be a disciple of Jesus in 2008? To that end, we are having a special weekend of teaching and fellowship to which are all invited. You can read more about it here

alpha

Tomorrow evening, (Wednesday at 6.30pm) we begin an alpha course in partnership with the chaplaincy team at Raigmore hospital. It is the first time I have been involved in leading a course for several years. To date, not many people have signed up to do the course, but from previous experience (10 courses!) God always seems to do some remarkable and wonderful things in peoples lives through the course. Just last Sunday, we baptised Martin and Michelle at Loch Ness. They came to faith through the last course. Please pray for us timorrow night.

Youth Discipleship Programme

We started this new programme last year and things have been going well, with around 9 of our young folk being mentored on a regular basis last term.

The main aim of this programme, is to enable the youth of our church to meet regularly with an older member of the congregation to study the Bible, pray together, and in doing so, help deepen their faith and love for the Lord.

This is a voluntary programme and folks have to sign up to it. So far, for this next term around 20 of our young people in Teenscene and Nitelife have signed up to the programme. They will meet with their mentor once a month, where they will eat together, read the Bible together and pray together.

Please pray for the young folk and mentors involved in this programme. Thanks

Chris

GOOD NEWS FROM THE SCOTTISH GOVERNMENT

Good news from the Scottish Government today. Hospital parking charges are being abolished. Read about it here.This will save the congregation some money in terms of the parking charges we pay to go and visit at Raigmore Hospital. It will also be good for patients and their families who at the moment incur considerable costs in terms of parking if their relatives are in hospital for an extended period.

ROK ON

I took a few photos this morning on the way to the office to illustrate the amazing progress being made on the Centre. Rok were pouring concrete today for the various ramps and steps for the entrances to the building. The keys are now being handed over on 15th September. The painting begins next Monday with teams of volunteers from the church. It is all "go!"