FIVE DAYS TO GO!

Five days to go! At our weekly team meeting this morning, we were trying to sort out last minute details for our tent. We hope to do a simple presentation telling a little of our story as a church. It's hard to summarise the life of a church on a few picture boards.

An encouraging email today from Albert Bogle. 4000 already booked to come over the weekend. They are aiming for 10,000. There is also a good article by Ron Ferguson in the Herald giving some of the background to the event.

Mission Aviation Fellowship

Friends and Volunteers of MAF are invited to a meeting on Wednesday 30 April. Andy and Caroline Gillies from South Africa will be the Guest Speakers. Tea will be served from 7.00pm in the small hall. Meetins starts at 7:30 and finishes at 9:30. Everyone welcome.

Jean Green (Church MAF rep.)

ATONEMENT

This morning at our 10am service we looked at a number of themes related to the film Atonement. I'm not doing it on purpose, but it seems that my thinking seems to be in synch with some of the blogs I regularly read. For those who want to follow up on some of the themes of our service this morning, take a look at Maggi Dawn's blog today

News from Alejandro Mesco

On my first visit to Peru in 2004, I met a pastor called Alejandro, who was leading a church in a very poor part of Arequipa, the second largest city in the country. Over the last 4 years I have tried to keep in touch.
I recently had this letter from Alejandro, giving some interesting and inspiring background information about his current ministry in Cabanaconde. I hope you will enjoy it as much as I have, and that you will share it with others.

Valuing the Spirituality of Children

An invitation for all Sunday School Teachers, Youth Organisation Leaders and Church Children's Workers. An afternoon of training on Valuing the Spirituality of children,led by the barnabas children's ministry .The afternoon will be practical and participative as well as having something to listen to.

Sunday 27th April from 2 -4.45pm in the Ness Bank Church Hall.

at a round table there are no sides...

Thanks to Maggi Dawn for the following post which echoes my feelings entirely. I have always disliked going to church meetings which are set out with a top table and so on. Give me a circle anytime!

CWW NATIONAL GATHERING UPDATE

Albert Bogle has been busy promoting the National Gathering, since being with us at Hilton last weekend. You can read his update here.

stoning the prophets

There is very little, if anything, that is truly original in any congregation's life. More often than not, we are on the look out for ideas which have worked well in other congregations, which we can then adapt. Here is one such idea which we are going to use in the autumn. The series looks great, and I'm excited about its impact in Hilton.

AFTER MCDONALDIZATION!

John Drane's new book is coming out next week. After McDonaldization is the sequel to The McDonaldization of the Church. The new volume promises some thoughts on theology, ministry and mission in a postmodern culture. We are indebted to John & Olive Drane for the way their observations on the church have shaped the way we think at Hilton Church. Many of the things we take for granted as part of our life as a fellowship were set in motion through weekends we spent with John & Olive in Hilton Church in the late 90's.

Dads Camping Trip

This years camping trip to Badaguish, Aviemore has been arranged for Friday 20th and Saturday 21st June 2008.
More details will be posted here but it will follow a similar format to our trip last September.
Costs £6.50 per adult per night. £3.25 per child per night. Under 3's free. There will also be a charge, as per last year, for some food/meal which will be provided.
Please contact Alan Brown on 715 720 for more details and to confirm if you are coming for either one or two nights.
Please pass the word around to friends/family/colleagues at work as we are keen to extend a welcome to everyone.
Alan

MORE GREEN ISSUES

It's funny how, when you begin to focus on an issue, other related matters come into focus. Here is a very interesting link which I picked up from reading Jonny Baker's outstanding blog. Jonny is also going to be sharing at the National Gathering.

PLASTIC RE-CYCLING IN INVERNESS

I have just returned from the lunchtime prayer gathering at Hilton Church. Today the focus was on environmental issues and was led by Ann Thomas who is co-ordinating that aspect of the Community Cafe Project. We were lamenting the lack of facilities for re-cycling plastic in the area. Here is an email just received from the Barn Church who have been petitioning the Council on this very issue.

For those of you who have been petitioning for the plastic recycling facilities - Good news!There was a council meeting last week (to which I was able to send petitions from around 300/350 people) and plastic recycling facilities in Inverness have been approved.Thanks to all of you who have contributed to raising awareness of this issue and need.

Peru Re-union

Is it really 6 months since a team of 35 went from the Highlands to work for the Vine Trust on 2 street kids projects in Peru? It didn't seem so as I looked out at all the familiar faces and their families last Friday evening at a re-union in Hilton Church. Even the guys from Skye made it across with their families to be with us. Ruth, Caroline and Adrienne had set up tables in the church with flowers and candles and, with everybody contributing, served a delicious meal. We even had a special guest in Albert Bogle (Chairman & originator of the Vine Trust). He thanked everyone for their efforts in terms of work and fund raising. Over £30,000 was raised by this work party and Albert was telling us that the Vine Trust now has a turnover of over £1.25 million. Albert said the grace and by the time the first course was finished everyone was mixing and chatting and having a great time. After the meal 3 who had been on the trip talked a little about the highs and lows of the trip and their reflections on the impact on their lives since they returned home. I had received an update on the work over in Peru and shared the good news of 2 new homes that have opened in the city of Ica (badly hit in last August's earthquake) and in Urambamba up in the Sacred valley not far from Machu Pichu. 20 boys are settling in to a new life in Ica and co-incidentally the first 20 boys were moving in to the new home in the Sacred Valley on Friday even as we had our re-union! Some of these boys have heart rending stories of hardship and abuse. It's easy to relegate them to the back of our minds as we pick up the threads of our own busy lives. To get news of them is a timely reminder of the need to pray for them and continue to support them (and their new house parents) as they move away from a life of the streets. It really is a great work and such a privilege to be involved in Jesus' ministry to abandoned street boys. In Peru we had some tremendous laughs as we played with the boys and at our re-union on Friday we finished the evening with one of the games we had played with them. Before we knew it it was 10 o'clock and clearing out time. Thanks go to all who came and contributed and worked so hard to make the evening a great success. For your diaries Calum Munro from the Vine Trust tells me that STV are doing a mini-series on the work in Peru and will be showing pictures of Kusi up in the Andes where the team spent their second week. The first programme is scheduled to go out at 11pm on the 6th May.

Barry

THE NATIONAL GATHERING

Albert Bogle was up in the Highlands promoting the National Gathering over the weekend. He gave an inspirational talk at our 10am service on All you can't leave behind. What do we really need to take with us on our journey with Jesus,and what can we leave behind? It was a call to travel light. It was encouraging to hear many people during the rest of the day saying that they were now planning of going to Edinburgh.

Emerging Church

For those interested in themes related to the emerging church (whatever that means!) there is an interesting conference taking place in Melbourne called Grassroots. Too far to go for the weekend, but I've found a fascinating blog called Pacific Highlander which is giving regular reports on it.

GLOBAL DAY FOR DARFUR

"It is time to change the narrative........the world needs to wake up. For too long it has let these children suffer. Our politicians need to act on Darfur." declare a group of writers including JK Rowling on the eve of Global Day for Darfur. We will be praying for peace in Darfur in our services tomorrow.

OFFENDING PEOPLE NICELY

A great post here by Maggi Dawn. We all like to be liked, but following Jesus has a way of leading us into uncomfortable situations where we will offend people. The gospel is inherently offensive to many people.

Hope and Depravity in the Congo

2 years ago, many of us were moved by a report of three children working in the copper mines of the Congo. Here is a report from Orla Guerin of the BBC which gave an update on the boys situation. A ray of hope in a very dark place. Yesterday, I received an email directing me to a Radio 4 report from Eastern Congo, an area where many of the forces who committed genocide in Rwanda fled to in 1994. The report is terrible beyond words and the temptation is to gloss over it or even ignore it. I'm posting it here because I think it's important that we're aware of these atrocities taking place across our world. It's good to hear that the Church in the Congo has been in the frontline of providing help.

National Gathering

We've written quite a bit about the National Gathering in Edinburgh on this blog. Albert Bogle who is the chairman of Church without Walls Team is up in Inverness promoting the Gathering this weekend. He is speaking at the Old High Church at 8pm on Sunday, but the good news for us at Hilton is that he will be sharing at our 10am service. Albert is also chairman of the Vine Trust. In partnership with the Vine Trust, over 80 people linked to the congregation have visited Peru to help with various projects linked to street boys. The team which went to Peru last October is having a re-union this evening, so perhaps more about that sometime soon.

SOULEDOUT

We have received an email from Chris Dowling with news of a very exciting event taking place in Inverness later this year called souledout

"........ The event is free to attend & very much for all denominations & age ranges & we have booked the Iron Works to hold the first event booked for Saturday the 1st of November. We are obviously starting to spread the word now & an advertising campaign will follow shortly but we want to make personal contact with as many people initial so it’s clear what we are trying to do & who it’s for."