Important Milestone Reached!

It was three years ago at the end of August that Rev. Alan Cartwright retired with the expectation that the parish of Fogo would be absorbed into the mega parish of Duns and District (incorporating Duns, Gavinton, Cranshaws, Bonkyl and Edrom).

Presbytery had hoped that at least for the following three years there would continue to be a service once a month at Fogo after which a decision would be made about the future of the building.

In the event Duns and District declined to accept Fogo into its family of congregations because they were  concerned about the state of the building and the potential drain it might become on their finances.

Rather than see Fogo closed three years ago Presbytery took the congregation of Fogo into Guardianship and appointed an Interim Moderator and a small team of assessor elders to fulfil the three-year promise which had been made to the congregation.

The interim moderator appointed remembers visiting every home in the parish with a letter explaining that the church would remain open and that there would continue to be a service a month. Two things struck him: first of all, the welcome he and Tom Stewart (who became the new Session Clerk) received and  secondly, the surprise that was expressed that the church was to remain open. It was well known that  attendances had dropped to single figures and there was a recognition that the church had not been  supported as it should have been.

Over the three years since that initial delivery of the letter about the future of the church things have  developed considerably. The introductory note has morphed into our Newsletter which is delivered into one hundred and twenty-five homes. What a lot that Newsletter has had to record.

Most significantly, services increased first to twice a month and then to there being a service every Sunday. Now, on a ‘normal’ Sunday, we would hope to have a congregation in the mid thirties, although quite a   number of our members do travel away from home and this can affect numbers particularly at holiday times. So sometimes our numbers are smaller — and      sometimes they are larger as well.

One of the reasons that our numbers have increased is that the church has become a much more attractive building in which to worship. The damp and cold of previous times is now but a distant memory — and there are many in the congregation now for whom the church has always been a warm, dry and attractive place. (This, readers will remember, is because an   innovative air-to-air heating system was installed and this over the course of the first year drew the damp of generations from the walls and now keeps the building at a steady 18 degrees (rising to 23 degrees on a  Sunday morning for the service).

Once the building was thoroughly dried out, it was, of course, redecorated both inside and out. Outside the walls were pointed, a number of windows replaced and all woodwork and metalwork repainted. Inside the building was repainted, new lighting installed and the tiny chancel area at the foot of the pulpit extended to make the worship area more appropriate for a pattern of service in which several people participate in leading worship each Sunday. It is also more suitable for baptisms, weddings and funerals as well as for smaller services such as those we enjoy each evening during Holy Week.

So much for the building! Buildings are important and the beautiful setting of this hugely attractive church is a great bonus to our worshipping community. It also reminds us that we are following in the steps of those who have worshipped here for a thousand years or so. One of the most exciting things about our building is that it isn’t just an old building existing now as it was originally constructed. Everywhere you look you can see where previous generations have made their own alterations to make the building more appropriate for the worshipping congregation of their time. The south aisle is an addition and, of course, it was altered itself when pews were installed for the first time some two hundred and two years ago. What a change that must have been!

Then in 1939 electric lighting arrived and was installed in the church — there was a lot of argument about its installation at the time but now we take it for granted.

Our contributions to making the building more  appropriate for our needs have included the restoration and refurbishment of the Vestry. It is now a great meeting room and is ideal for the refreshments which follow Sunday services. We have also installed a toilet. It is a long time since it was acceptable for a public building not to have toilet facilities, especially when, like ours, it hosts events which are patronised by older people or by people who have travelled a considerable distance as they do, for example, for a wedding or for a funeral.

So how have we been using our wonderful building? There is a service every Sunday and there is always a good worshipping attendance. Most Sundays all of our box pews have people sitting in them and sometimes the south aisle pews are well-filled as well, even  although they are quite uncomfortable.

Our services are marked by a considerable amount of singing and by really good musical accompaniment which makes singing new songs quite easy. Each   Sunday an Order of Service booklet is produced. This contains the words of all of the songs and also Bible readings so that everyone has something to take home after the service. The other real advantage of the printed Order of Service is that it enables us to have hymns and songs from everywhere — we are not tied to any one hymn book and we can sing songs as soon as they are produced, as well as old songs which have been left out of contemporary collections.

Over the last three years we have had some wonderful services. Recently we hosted the Presbytery Elders’ Service. This service was prepared in Fogo, had  seventeen participating worship leaders (thirteen of whom came from our congregation) and was presented to a full church with people in absolutely every pew.

Another very special service was the one during which new elders were ordained. We started three years ago with two elders; now our Kirk Session has nine members and we have a Congregational Board elected by the congregation as well. New elders will be trained and ordained during the coming autumn and winter season.

No review of our services would be complete without mention of how fortunate we are to have children   worshipping in our midst. It is not only a privilege to share in their Christian upbringing but they add so much to our adult worship as well. Visitors often  remark on the pictures which adorn our walls, the work of our children and a reminder of the Bible stories we have shared during worship.

Others will want to mention the special services we have at Christmas, at Communion (when we share in using silver communion-ware which has been in use for several centuries), or an evening when initially we had to walk to and from church with the pathway illuminated by candles but where now we have our own street lighting system.

The church remains the place where special events are celebrated. Recently we marked Gill and Pete’s  fortieth wedding anniversary during our regular  Sunday morning service. It was special for us all.

Of course, Church isn’t only about what happens on a Sunday. We have developed our own education  programme. This includes a small library in the church and a number of special events during the course of each year. Sometimes we meet to share in a learning programme which can involve watching a film or discussing an issue either of faith or of the day.

We have arranged to take a party of folk from the congregation on an eleven-day pilgrimage of the Holy Land at the end of January next year. This trip will  enable around a couple of dozen of our folk to visit all of the Christian sites about which we read each Sunday. We’ll visit Nazareth and Bethlehem, we’ll  explore the area around the Sea of Galilee. We’ll be taken to Jerusalem and we will walk the Via Dolorosa along which Jesus carried his cross. We’ll spend time in the Holy Sepulchre, the site both of the crucifixion and of the resurrection three days later. It will be a   life-changing trip and that experience will then be fed back into the life of our congregation.

We have already held a couple of meetings to learn about all that we are going to see and there will be  several more of these meetings during the autumn and winter.

We have built up quite a team of worship leaders.  Several, particularly Chris Scott and Kirsten and John Arthur, are happy to conduct Sunday worship for us. But there are others including Clare Fleming, Liz    Casey, Olive Gardiner and Gill Gibbens who have led services and there are at least another eight or so who regularly read scripture or lead prayers on a Sunday morning. We are facing a future without stipendiary ministers but we are extremely fortunate to have such a  fine and capable team of worship leaders.

We are also extremely fortunate to continue to be a congregation which is growing — we have more than fifty names on our congregational roll — and to be a   congregation where everyone comes regularly to church. In part this is because all of our new elders have a commitment to be in church every Sunday and that kind of commitment is catching. When our folk are not away from home we know that they will be with us in church.

Our church has become quite a setting for musical events. Most of these are arranged for us by Heather and Harris who live next door to the church. Recently we had a very successful music festival garden party and bar-b-cue. It was held at Mount Pleasant on the premise that there we would cause least disturbance to neighbours (although we learned later that music could be heard far further away than we had thought). Live music was played continuously from 2 p.m. until 10 p.m. and was provided by the cream of musical talent from Berwickshire. There was music of every description but a high spot for many was the concert performance of some of the songs from ‘Queen—the Musical’ by pupils from the High School who had completed their final performance of this musical earlier that afternoon. With three bar-b-cues and  mountains of strawberries we had initially catered for around a hundred but in the event more than            five hundred folk arrived, mostly under thirty years old. It was a wonderful opportunity for those of us in the church to get to know others in our community as well as to say ‘thank you’ to some of those who had performed for us in church during the previous years.

We hope that a picture of a lively congregation is emerging from this three-year review. There are lots of things which are missing because we take them for granted. We share in funerals and baptisms, we have folk preparing for adult baptism and confirmation. We have friendships which began in church now deepened by sharing on other occasions. Friendship is probably at the heart of the Fogo congregation. Everyone really gets on with everyone else, and everyone supports each other. We like to think that’s why when folk come along for the first time they then decide to stay.

With our three-year period of presbytery guardianship over, what does the future hold for our congregation? We have been given a five-year non-stipendiary     ministry under reviewable tenure. What that means is that our former interim moderator, Dane Sherrard, has been appointed as voluntary Parish Minister for a    period of five years, although during that time, or after that time, the presbytery can review the situation should it feel that to be necessary. All of the  congregation were given the opportunity of voting in a secret ballot to confirm Dane’s appointment.

There will be a major review of all congregations within the Church of Scotland very soon because there is a dramatic shortage of ministers  (our whole  presbytery is projected to have just three or four stipendiary ministers by 2023) and most churches are unable to pay their way.

We are fortunate. Partly because of the real generosity of our members and partly because we have developed a model in which we have only limited expenses we have no financial problems on the horizon. We contribute to the Church of Scotland and to Presbytery and we draw no funds from them other than those which belong to us. In other words we are a net      contributor to the Church of Scotland and we are  entirely self-supporting; we add to the national church and to presbytery rather than taking from them. Against that background we hope that we will be allowed to continue as we are and to continue to develop our future along the lines we have been  exploring over these last three years.

So what of our dreams for this next five years? It would be wonderful were more folk from our parish to come and join us in the church. That would be great. However, it is also important to us that even those who don’t want to come to church on a Sunday realise that this is their church and that we want to share it with them. Then if there are occasions when the church or a minister could be helpful to them they will not feel like strangers but will know that they can call on us should they wish.

It has been very good to meet people as we have delivered newsletters or as folk have visited our flower festivals or musical events. Fogo Parish Church is a church for everyone and everyone will always be welcome.

The one big building issue which remains for us is the pews in the south aisle. Some were desperately keen to have them removed because they are so  uncomfortable, a number which was greatly augmented by those from the presbytery who attended our elders’ service and had to sit on these pews!  Others, to do with the building’s maintenance, had concerns about the state of the pews themselves and particularly about the fact that so many of them have been damaged by woodworm. The Kirk Session and the Congregational Board have discussed these pews at two consecutive meetings and reached the conclusion that in their view these pews would be better replaced with appropriate seats, as in the case of Coldingham Priory. This view was then taken to the Stated Annual Meeting of the Congregation which unanimously     endorsed this recommendation.

Of course, because our church is such an important historical church — a grade A building — we are not free to make such changes without permission. The recommendation went as a request to CARTA which is the Church of Scotland committee which deals with such matters under powers devolved from Historic Environment Scotland under the Ecclesiastical         Exemption regulations. (The secretary of this committee was recruited from the staff of Historic  Environment Scotland.)

CARTA sent two members, including the secretary, to meet with representatives of the congregation and  presbytery and then prepared a report which was submitted to a full meeting of all of their members. That meeting agreed to give permission for the south aisle pews to be carefully removed and replaced with seats similar to the seats in Coldingham Priory but with the instruction that each seat should have arms so that they are appropriate for  older people.

The approval from the authorities was brought to the congregation on each of the two Sundays following its being approved and on each occasion the congregation was of the unanimous view that this work should be undertaken as soon as possible.

Of course, there is no question ever of anyone seeking to alter our box-pews. They are our real treasure — although careful examination will show that a previous generation has found even these to be unsatisfactory and has added strips to the front of each pew seat to make it much more comfortable, an option which was not open to us in the south aisle because of the       wood-worm damage and because of their basic design.

Each generation makes its own mark on this  remarkable building because it lives and grows along with the congregation who call it their home. Our hope and expectation is that those who visit will enjoy our   beautiful church and see the changes made in our generation as a sign of the lively congregation we have become, treasuring our past and looking to our future.

From the Minister’s Desk: Dane Sherrard

It has been an enormous privilege for me to have been given the opportunity to share with the emerging congregation of Fogo Parish Church. I love being in the congregation every Sunday morning at 10.30 a.m. I love it so much that, although I haven’t conducted every service, I have been present on every occasion when there has been a service over the three years entrusted to my care.

Now we have another five years, I won’t be present every Sunday as I’ve promised Rachel that we shall go on holiday, but it has been one of the experiences of my life to have shared in the development of your parish church.

It’s  a journey which has much to say to other churches too, by way of encouragement. Maybe the way we have done things wouldn’t be right for other congregations but our experience of almost disappearing and then growing into something special out of virtually nothing is a wonderful story. It’s a resurrection story (which is appropriate for a church) and it is a people story.

The list of everyone who has made this church into what it has become is far too long to mention here, and in any event is not the most important thing. What is important is that we too, like those in the earliest days of the Church have felt that we are being guided and encouraged by something far bigger than ourselves. The first Christians called this the Holy Spirit and we have felt this presence with us during worship and as we have met together and planned   together and worked together.

It is important that our small community retains its church. It has been part of our community’s story for a thousand years. It is the place where our children have been baptised and later married. It the building from which our loved ones have been buried and given into God’s care. Its very presence reminds us that there is more to life than we see around us every day. It speaks to us of God’s love for all his people not as something from the past which was important to those who came before us, but as something which really matters today.

Colour Supplement

Our colour supplement  comes as an addition to the August, 2019 Newsletter. First of all we bring you pictures of our recent Fogo Fest (our name for our music festival, garden party and bar-b-cue held at Mount Pleasant at the end of June).

At the top musicians perform on our ‘stage’, watched in the middle by folk under cover of canvas while youngsters prefer to sit on the grass. Below, our three bar-b-cues compete with each other for the title of ‘Bar-B-Cue of the Day.’

Above: Performers of all ages, starting in the sunshine and ending in the dark. Below: we  visit behind the scenes before moving on — the picture of  Gill and Pete outside the  Church was taken on the day of  their special service. We celebrated Hunter’s baptism with his family and friends, and, the recent visit of the jazz group ‘Frog and Henry’ from St. Louis. Erica and Chris relax at ‘Fogo Fest’ — Chris often leads worship — while below him Tom is usually seen welcoming folk at the church door.

Church is about people. We thought of showing you pictures of our beautiful building and all the  alterations and decorations within; but instead our two pictures here show some of our congregation egg-rolling and some of the youngsters from our nursery retelling the Christmas story. We’d love you to come and join us.            

“You are always welcome at Fogo Parish Church”