Busy Eleven Days

I said yesterday that I had been busy for the past couple of weeks so here's a bit of a run down on what I've been up to.

My supervising minister has been away during that time and therefore I have been fulfilling the role of Parish Minister - at least temporarily!

Even before Scott went away we knew that I would have three funerals to take before he came back. Fortunately they were well spaced out, on Friday, then Tuesday and Thursday. Each of them was different, taking place in different venues, with differing periods of involvement with the church, but they were all similar in that there were not large numbers of people present.

I was leading worship at Kingscavil and Winchburgh Churches last weekend, and at Abercorn Church this weekend. All went well with good feedback from some of the congregation.

On Monday morning I had a meeting to attend in Glasgow and it was not helped by First Scotrail cancelling my intended train, making me 30 minutes late. I was late back to the car park, but fortunately escaped a £60 fine! That evening I enjoyed a prayer and encouragement meeting in support of the Try Praying initiative running in Edinburgh at the moment.

On Tuesday evening we had a Stewardship Team meeting at Winchburgh and on Wednesday I was making class visits to nine of the classes at Winchburgh and Bridgend Primary Schools. On these visits we lead each class for 20 minutes on some topic related to Christianity or Church. This week I was talking about Lent, when many Christians think about building our understanding of God and building our local communities. My starting point was that Jesus was a builder, and the children got to have fun building towers with play bricks. It's hard work to prepare and tailor the material for classes from P1 to P7!

On Wednesday evening I was giving the talk at our Exploring Prayer group, this time on whether asking God to do things for us achieves anything, and how do we cope when God doesn't do what we want him to do.

The funeral on Thursday was special, for the lady who had died was the daughter of Winchburgh Church's second minister. His name was Hugh Armstrong and he served the congregation from 1897 until he died in 1930. Behind the Communion Table at the front of Winchburgh Church there is a splendid stained-glass window in memory of Mr. Armstrong.

None of the present family had seen the Armstrong window and I was glad to host a visit on Friday morning from Mr. Armstrong's grandchildren who had all travelled up from the Kent area. It was a poignant moment for them to visit the church where their grandfather had been minister for so long, and where their mother had grown up. I hope you enjoying looking at the window above, and reading the explanatory text below, and the context photo too.


After Thursday's funeral I had to get stuck in to the preparations for Sunday worship. Not that I hadn't been thinking about it already - but not much got written down until those three funerals were undertaken.

And on Friday evening, it was almost time off when my wife and I attended a concert by the Livingston Fiddlers at Winchburgh Church, in aid of Church Funds. It was a splendid evening and everyone enjoyed the wide variety of music - and for some of us, and ice cream at half-time!

So after all that activity I've been glad to get some time for family and home this weekend. Tomorrow the Boss is back on duty and I'll have four school events to participate in. Stand by for another busy week!