This has been a good week – back to normal after the trip to the Holy Land and the catching up that invariably results from such a visit. There was a really good feeling in Church last Sunday. I felt it – and other people felt it too. I got an email the following day from which I quote:  “Was really pleased to be at Fogo yesterday. There is such a joy there, you can almost touch it!” I’m glad that other people feel it too.

I spent quite bit of the first part of the week working on the communication channels which have been identified as crucial by our congregational mission strategy conference. We are now operating a web-site, Facebook, Twitter, an E-Newsletter, and a regular slot in the local news section of our local paper. On our web-site I am trying to keep a weekly blog going and I have succeeded in producing a short video and a sound copy of the blog (both of which are on the web-site). There is still quite a lot to do, the next task for me is to create a form for the web-site to allow new folk to sign up for our E-Newsletter (our members are already subscribers). I’ll hope to do this next week.

On Wednesday Tom Thorburn our Presbytery Elder, Tom Stewart our Session Clerk, Olive Gardiner our Treasurer, along with Bob Kay the Fabric and Glebe Convener of Presbytery, Roger Dodd the Presbytery Planning Convener and I met with two members of the General Trustees to consider our plan to purchase a cottage to use to bring retired ministers to our area as our guests who will be invited while they are with us to conduct services both at Fogo and in some of the other churches in the area who will not have the services of a stipendiary minister. It would be fair to say that some of our team found the meeting to be a frustrating one but we enjoyed showing our visitors around our beautiful church and I hope that the General Trustees will catch the enthusiasm which is shared both by our congregation and by our Presbytery.

Looking to the near future we shall be watching the television mini-series Masada over the first four Thursdays of Lent, starting at 7 p.m. on 27^th. February in the church. This has arisen from our trip to the Holy Land where we spent our Friday being taken to the top of Masada by cable-car having first of all been shown a presentation about the importance of the fortress there. As part of the presentation there were scenes from this mini-series and so we determined to get hold of a copy we could watch in full once we returned home. Of course, this evening isn’t just for those of us who visited Masada, it is an evening for everyone. It is an exciting story and the film has been extremely well made.

Friday 6^th. March is the World Day of Prayer and this year a service is being held at 7 p.m. in Christ Church, in Duns. It will be good for us to have the opportunity of joining with members of all of the local congregations at the Scottish Episcopal Church. The service is prepared by Christian women from a different country each year. This year the service has been prepared by women from Zimbabwe and the theme they have chosen is ‘Rise, take your mat and walk’.

During the week I have started arranging meetings with elders from some of the congregations in the Gordon, Greenlaw, Legerwood and Westruther grouping who will be without a minister when Tom Nicholson retires soon after Easter. As I mentioned last week, I am to be their interim moderator and this is the major reason that we have advanced our plans to have a cottage to which we can invite retired ministers to assist us with the many services which will have to be held in the very near future as we move towards a time when services will be more usually led by lay members of each congregation. It is going to be exciting times!

I started off by explaining that I thought that we were now getting our communication act together. But what of the message we are communicating? The message this week has been all about the results of our Sunday afternoon conference in January. These are now available on all of our media. I hope that they will be the subject of our discussions at home and when we meet in church so that when we have our next Sunday afternoon conference after a congregational lunch on 15^th. March we can dot the ‘i’s and cross the ‘t’s and agree our policy for the rest of this year. Of course, work will already have begun on some of the plans which were clearly agreed at the first meeting – such as, for example, strengthening our communications strategy.

We value everyone’s opinions, so do share them – and look out for another edition of this blog next week!

Saturday 11th. January, 2020

This is going to be a really exciting week for us. Tomorrow we meet for our service as usual at 10.30 a.m. but this will be followed by a buffet lunch and then we shall meet as a Kirk Session, Congregational Board and Congregation to start work on preparing our mission strategy for this new year.

I suppose that it must sound strange that we have waited until the start of our fourth year together before having such a meeting. But we did meet a couple of years ago and draw up what we thought were the important things we ought to be doing under the heading of mission. More than half of the congregation met in Clare’s home and we prepared a list of nine things we thought we could do and, looking back, we have achieved almost all of them.

But, truth to tell, over the first three years of our new existence we have been concentrating on growing our congregation (what’s that if it is not mission?) and making our ancient building fit for worship in the twenty-first century. With all of that done — with a wonderful congregation and a glorious building — it is now time to concentrate on what we really exist for, and that’s what we are going to discuss tomorrow.

I can’t give you, dear reader, any clue as to what will be decided because we are hoping that the ideas will emerge from our members and friends. It is important, however, that we don’t see mission as a period of frenetic activity which once done will allow us to subside into a well-deserved comfort zone, but rather that we see mission as being what we are about today, tomorrow and every day.

Watch this space for news of how we get on!

On Thursday evening we shall have the final meeting of our group who are going on pilgrimage to the Holy Land at the end of this month. There are twenty-seven of us in all and it looks as if it is going to be the trip of a life time with us spending a number of days in Jerusalem exploring the city and the surrounding area before setting off for Galilee (via Caesarea and Acre) and spending four days exploring the places in which Jesus taught and healed during his ministry. We’ll be spending eleven days in all in the Holy Land and, with a packed programme, we’ll see an enormous amount of the country but I’m particularly looking forward to sailing on the Sea of Galilee and looking around at the sky and the sea and the shapes of the hills all around and realising that what I’m seeing is very similar to what Jesus and his disciples will have seen so many years ago. I hope to be able to post updates on where we are and what we see while we are away.

Next Sunday our service will be led by the Reverend John Hunter, a great friend of the congregation, and one who was born here in Fogo when his father was minister here. Looking further ahead to a week on Friday at 7 p.m. we shall welcome back Frog and Henry, the St. Louis jazz musicians who entertained us so royally last year. Put the date in your diary and plan to be with us.