March 2020 Newsletter

Our Congregation is planning a Mission Strategy for the Future!

Our big event in January was to hold a Sunday afternoon conference (after a congregational lunch) to discuss our mission strategy for the year ahead.

A detailed report has been prepared and is available on our web-site for all to see. But what might our church look like if the initial proposals were adopted? Here is a vision, a dream if you like, set at the end of this year of how things might be.

“It’s the final weekend of November, 2020, and our  Sunday morning Service has just ended. It’s been a splendid service led by one of our elders with assistance from several of our members.

As has been the custom for a number of weeks, our service has been recorded – (there are three small,   discrete cameras in the Church: one on the back wall of the south aisle, one behind the pulpit and one on the former Harcarse loft). Later this afternoon the service will be uploaded to our Church website and will be available for all to share.

We’ve had a lot of discussions before we reached this point. Why would we offer our service on-line when several of the bigger and more prestigious churches already do it? We came down to thinking that this was exactly why we should. We are a small congregation in a very rural situation. Folk in Berwickshire who might not identify with big congregations in the central belt would, perhaps, be intrigued by the adventures of a small congregation with which they could readily  identify.

This morning, as if to prove the point, we had a new couple with us for the first time. They had been fascinated by all they had read about our little church, but seeing it on line made it real to them and they realised that if they came along there really would be folk here to welcome them!

We learned at Church this morning that progress has been made with the ‘young and old’ church service project — what a mouthful, but you’ll see why it’s called a ‘young and old’ project as I explain.

Over recent weeks some of our members have been working with young folk from our area to create six short services on video – but they are services with a difference. The theme of the most recent is ‘God’s Creation’ – the Bible readings, poems and meditations are presented by young folk and were read and filmed by the banks of the Tweed; the music for the hymns was  recorded in our church but as it is played and the hymns were sung, the screen showed pictures of some of the most beautiful countryside in the Borders.

The talk this time was given by the minister, but some of the programmes don’t require a talk and some have talks given by our elders, and it is hoped that some of the youngsters will share in these talks, as well as in taking charge of the technology – filming, recording, editing and so on – in the future.

Later this week a team from the Church will start to visit the nursing homes, care homes and sheltered housing complexes within Berwickshire, concentrating particularly on those where there is no regular worship provided by local congregations.

The aim of the visit is to see if residents would enjoy seeing one of these short services perhaps once a week or once a month. The idea is that the video would be brought by one or two of our team who would introduce the service and share in coffee with the residents afterwards. It’s sad that there is so little spiritual care for older folk in our area.

Our technology is being used in other ways as well. One of the challenges for the future is that there are not going to be many ministers in our area. Elders are often keen to lead worship but less keen to regularly deliver a sermon.

So our team has started to prepare a number of  sermon videos. Local people, speaking well, with the finished

article supplied on a memory stick or a disk to those who wish one, and can play them back on a television or project them onto a screen.

Some of the young people involved have written to the Moderator and to the Archbishop of Canterbury inviting them to speak to our congregations on tape, and already videos have been put together featuring several of the Church of Scotland’s missionary partners. Of course, it wouldn’t do to have a pre-recorded sermon every week – even if it were deliberately aimed at our own local situation.

Today we also learned that a retired minister will be moving into our Church cottage at the start of next month. He will conduct two services a month at our Church, but he will also lead worship at several of our neighbouring churches as well. We will all be getting in supplies for Clare’s Cottage to ensure that the minister and his wife feel welcome when they arrive.

We’ll learn all about him very quickly, not just by meeting him, but through our web site and facebook page. A great deal of work has been put into our Church web-site which is now not only up-to-date but contains a great deal of exciting material as well. It all goes back to a conference we had earlier in the year which identified communication as being at the heart of all that we are about.

Perhaps we hadn’t realised all of the opportunities available to us – our own Newsletter and web-site; our Facebook page, our local newspaper (all featuring   superb photographs by our resident photographer), and the special tent which we had as part of our annual Music Festival, a tent which told the story of so many of our members and of the adventures of our small congregation.

Since last month we have also enjoyed our half-hour video ‘television programme’ hosted on our website. It’s been good to learn more about our own church, our own people, and the wider work of the Church of  Scotland through this medium and again it has been a real bonus for us to have the assistance of young folk in putting all of this together and for the exhilarating musical items which they have added to our programme.

We always knew that our church provided an excellent musical venue, but the facility to share what is seen by a relatively small audience with people from much  further afield is wonderful. It was suggested this  morning that as well as taking out short services to care homes we might also include one of our video magazine programmes so that folk could be reminded of all that is going on in our area.

In time it is hoped to add the facility to stream events live from our church, but the plan is to take things one step at a time.

It is already such a lot of work preparing the material and making the videos, but it is also a great way of  getting alongside youngsters, getting them to share the expertise they have. No doubt it will lead to other opportunities as well as we seek to respond to the  challenges which they will bring to us – challenges about our faith and why we do, and believe, what we do; and that, ultimately is where we hope to arrive: to be in a real dialogue with our community; to provide Christian support for the elderly; to assist congregations forced to go through difficult change; and to show to the communities of Berwickshire that the Church is not slowly decaying but is steadily rediscovering its confidence and its faith in sharing the message which everyone needs to hear.

Today was also a special day in our church as during it the new prayer room in the former Harcarse loft was opened and dedicated, providing a small and comfortable place for private prayer and in which our church library will be housed. It will also be the base for some of our learning activities for our congregation and will be made available, as are all our facilities, to groups from our local community.

To mark this opening a small Christian book has been given to every child in the parish, including the sixty or so children of the local nursery. It is good to take every opportunity of sharing Christian resources with the families in our area.

And, of course, as this is the fifth Sunday of the month we had a congregational lunch after our service.  Sometimes we have a speaker but today we watched a film together – a modern retelling of part of the Gospel story, which everyone enjoyed. There are so many wonderful resources available to congregations today and we gain so much from using them. We had a small sales table today, part of our fund-raising programme to assist our own Missionary Partner, Dr. Linus Malu, who works with disadvantaged people in Malawi. Linus had sent us a video message which we all watched together immediately after lunch. It has been a great day  — but then Sundays always are!”

Of course, that is just a dream but there will be a follow up meeting to our January get-together to make definite plans and this will be held on Sunday 15th. March, after a congregational lunch following our morning service.

Fogo Church Pilgrimage to the Holy Land

Towards the end of January a large proportion of the congregation, with a few friends, set off for the Holy Land for eleven wonderful days walking in the footsteps of Jesus.

We flew into Tel Aviv and arrived at our hotel in Jerusalem in the wee sma’ hours — but what a   wonderful hotel it was, situated right beside the Damascus Gate with views over the ancient city walls; and what a welcome we received — even although it was well after midnight there was a meal waiting on the table for us. We ate quickly and made our way to bed as we had an early start, as we did every morning of our trip.

That first day in Jerusalem was very special. We started by making our way to the Western Wall to see the place which is the most holy of all to modern Jews — the wall of the great temple and place where Jews gather to pray every day. From there we were allowed onto the Temple Mount, where we walked in the sunshine, admiring the Dome on the Rock and the Al Aqsa mosque as special to Moslems as is the Western Wall to the Jews — and all the time we were walking where Jesus walked.

A visit to Bethesda followed as we made our way out of Jerusalem to board our bus and transfer into Palestinian territory as we made our way to Bethlehem where, of course, we visited the Church of the Nativity on the site where Jesus was born and where Saint Jerome translated the Bible into Latin before we made our way to the field where the shepherds heard the news of Jesus’ birth and where we celebrated communion together.

What a day it had been but the next day was as special. We started with a service in the Garden of Gethsemane before visiting all of the places we read of in the    Gospels on the Mount of Olives. After lunch we walked the Via Dolorosa to the Holy Sepulchre, site both of the crucifixion and the resurrection, before making our way to the Garden Tomb — an excitement on the way being that the city gates were temporarily closed because of the strength of feeling in the city at remarks that President Trump had made about his plans for lasting peace in Palestine.

And so it continued as we spent five days in all based in Jerusalem, visiting the Upper Room, Emmaus, the place where Jesus was tried and where Peter denied three times that he knew who Jesus was. We went to Bethany and visited Lazarus’ tomb, visited an Arab school and boys’ home, went to Masada, to Qumran (where the Dead Sea scrolls were discovered) and we floated on the Dead Sea. We also visited the Jordan and saw where Jesus was both baptised and tempted.

As we travelled around members of our group  conducted short services and our fabulous guide, Nael, ensured at we were all fully aware of the significance of where we were.

When it was time to move from Jerusalem to the Sea of Galilee we travelled north by way of Caesarea — where Pilate was based and later where Peter shared the Gospel with Cornelius and his family — and Acre where the crusaders, in later times, established their Holy Land base.

The Sea of Galilee was every bit as wonderful as we had expected. We walked where Jesus taught and healed and rediscovered the feeding of the five thousand, the Easter breakfast on the shore, and the sermon on the mount. We also went off to Caesarea Philippi where Jesus took his disciples and Peter recognised that Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of God, and we were taken to the top of the Mount of Transfiguration where Peter, James and John watched as Jesus met with Moses and Elijah, their clothes and their faces shining. We visited Nazareth where Jesus grew up and sat in the synagogue where Jesus had first preached and we explored a Bible Village designed to show pilgrims what first century life was like. Best of all, we sailed back across the Sea of Galilee. In the middle the boat stopped for our service as we looked at the hills, and sky and sea and realised that what we saw was what Jesus had seen so many years before. It was a memorable time together.

From the Minister’s Desk

Such a lot has happened since our last Newsletter in December. We had really great Christmas Services, all of which were well-supported and every one of which was quite different. I will remember the service we had with children from our local nursery as well as the midnight service on Christmas Eve.

And then there was our congregational conference to which so many of our members came and in which everyone participated. We have the basis of an exciting plan and you will gradually see it taking shape over coming weeks.

January came to an end with a visit from Frog and Henry who took Fogo by storm with their music. The church was full and no-one wanted the evening to end — evidenced both by the standing ovations the band received and the encores they were pleased to share.

And then twenty-seven of us set off for the Holy Land for the pilgrimage of a lifetime. I had expected that the trip would be superb but my expectations were far exceeded by the kindness we received and the  arrangements which had been made for us. It really was a visit we shall never forget

Now we are back! The journey towards Easter has begun and it will be special for many of us as we remember all that we saw while in the Holy Land.

The minister of four of our neighbouring churches will be retiring soon after Easter and I have been asked to become their interim moderator, in other words to look after them for the foreseeable future. It is going to be quite a challenge, but one in which I will be ably assisted by our wonderful team of folk in Fogo. There’s no getting away from it that these are difficult times for the church as ministers become ever scarcer but perhaps with so many members    taking on responsibilities in new ways we’ll end up with something better than we had before.

“You are always welcome at Fogo Parish Church”