Sunday Service for 1 October 2023

Sunday 1 October 2023 — NL2-4, Conversations With God 4
Gourock St. John’s Church of Scotland
Service prepared by Rev. Teri Peterson
Manse: 632143 
Email: TPeterson (at) churchofscotland.org.uk
Email Charlene, Parish Assistant: CMitchell (at) churchofscotland.org.uk

Prelude Music

Welcome & Announcements

*We Gather As God’s Family (As the Bible is brought in, we stand and sing)
A family gathered in love,
striving for justice and joy,
blessing the broken-hearted,
and sharing the hope of God’s kingdom.

Call to Worship
One: Sometimes we feel like asking God: are you paying attention?
All: And God asks us too: are we paying attention?
1: To the people right in front of us,
2: to the people who live with the consequences of our actions,
3: to the realities with which our neighbours live,
4: to the opportunities presented to us:
All: are we paying attention?
One: God sees, God knows, and God comes through us to respond.
All: We will listen, and look, and go.

*Sanctuary Hymn: God of History — Recent, Ancient

Prayer
You are the giver of Abundant Life, O God,
and yet we so often accidentally choose the empire’s side of death instead.
We confess that we have allowed the perfect to become the enemy of the good,
and when we can’t do everything, we do nothing.
We admit that we have looked down on the little things as not enough,
while not actually doing any of the big things we talk about.
And so, little by little, oppression grows unchallenged until we are overwhelmed.
Forgive us, Lord, for our apathy that keeps us from resisting in even the smallest ways.
Forgive us for overlooking opportunities to do justice because they don’t fit our preconceived notions.
Forgive us for being so wrapped up in ourselves that we never even notice you calling.
As Moses turned aside from his everyday economic concern to see you doing a new thing,
turn us aside from those things that consume us
that we may be set ablaze by your call that brings life instead.
You Are, You Will Be, You…
Are Being itself,
a verb, always on the move,
not a name we can pin down and use and control,
a breath that slips in to even the smallest cracks
and sculpts the biggest landscapes
and just…IS.
We cannot understand you with our minds,
but we know your presence,
Your Being,
we know your story with us and with our ancestors.
We have seen you at work throughout history,
and your action anchors us in your goodness.
This is your name for all generations:
The God who IS, in relationship.
Thank you.
Amen.

Online Hymn: You, Lord, Are In This Place

Scripture Reading with Reflection: Exodus 1.8 – 2.10, 3.1-15 (Robert Alter translation)

And a new king arose over Egypt, who knew not Joseph.

*It seems too soon to stop and think about just one sentence, but…this sentence is important. When we decide that the past doesn’t matter, that we’ve moved on and there’s no need to learn about what our forebears have done…when we disconnect from history and think that it has nothing to do with who we are today…it’s easy to get into trouble. It’s something that comes up fairly often when we think about the legacy of slavery, for instance: it’s important for us to remember when our ancestors have exploited and oppressed people, participated in injustice, and made choices that have turned out to have long consequences. Even when we aren’t the ones who enslave or colonise or destroy the environment, we still enjoy the long tail of advantages while others still live with the disadvantage created by those who came before us, and honesty about that, and finding ways to repair that damage, matter.

In the case of this story, it actually sort of went the other way round. It had been around three hundred years since Joseph had saved Egypt, and his family’s arrival in the country all those years ago and their subsequent generations of peaceful living together and mutual benefit and interdependence should have been a reminder of the value of these two peoples, two cultures, living side by side together, growing together both maintaining their own cultures and also intertwining in various ways. Instead, historical amnesia led to irrational fear, xenophobia, and ultimately dehumanisation and oppression. It’s worthwhile for us to pay attention to this phenomenon, not least because it is happening again in our political discourse literally this week. It is eerie how relevant it sounds to say that a new generation of politicians arose over a country and did not remember their own nor their country’s history, and believed that their diversity was a danger.

We see what happens when we think that the ancient history doesn’t matter to us anymore:

And he said to his people, “Look, the people of the sons of Israel is more numerous and vaster than we. Come, let us be shrewd with them lest they multiply and then, should war occur, they will actually join our enemies and fight against us, and go up from the land.” And they set over them forced labour foremen, so as to abuse them with their burdens, and they built store cities for Pharaoh: Pithom and Rameses. And as they abused them, so did they multiply, and so did they spread, and they came to loathe the Israelites.
**Just a quick pause here to note how rapidly this happened: from the political leader having this fear and saying it out loud, to the entire population coming to loathe their neighbours. All it took was a few speeches and some policy changes so that people who were different were now useable and expendable, and soon everyone hated them for just living their lives and having children.

And the Egyptians put the Israelites to work at crushing labour, and they made their lives bitter with hard work with mortar and bricks and every work in the field —all their crushing work that they performed. And the king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was the named Shiphrah and the other was named Puah. And he said, “when you deliver the Hebrew women and look on the birth stool, if it is a boy, you shall put him to death, and if it is a girl, she may live.” And the midwives feared God, and did not do as the king of Egypt had spoken to them, and they let the children live. And the king of Egypt called the midwives and said to them, “why did you do this thing and let the children live?” And the midwives said to Pharaoh, “For not like the Egyptian women are the Hebrew women, for they are hardy. Before the midwife comes to them they give birth.” And God made it go well with the midwives, and the people multiplied and became very vast. And inasmuch as the midwives feared God, he made households for them. And Pharaoh charged his whole people, saying, “every boy that is born you shall fling into the Nile, and every girl you shall let live.”
**I think it is fascinating that this story has only two named characters, and they are women. And not just women, but women who didn’t have families of their own, women whose job was to look after the women and children, women whose abilities would have been both revered and suspect. And they manage to use their position at the bottom of society to save lives and stand up against injustice, death, and the political power of the day. Can you imagine being given their instructions, and deciding that despite the visible and physical power of the Egyptian king, they would choose instead to serve an invisible God who appeared to have abandoned them to a terrible fate? They took their own lives into their hands when they stood before Pharaoh and lied to him, basically saying “you’re a man, you don’t know anything about childbirth, and you’re an Egyptian, you don’t know anything about Hebrews…basically the thing you want us to do is impossible and no one would be able to do it.” They didn’t want to be replaced by midwives who would carry out the order, so they made sure their excuse was watertight. They couldn’t have known that the next step would be for the king to simply order every person to do the thing the midwives refused to do. It’s unimaginable, isn’t it? That when the medical professionals insisted on saving lives, instead the whole population would be tasked with the murders the king wanted.

Of course it isn’t unimaginable at all…there are states in the US where neighbours are given rewards for turning neighbours over the police for seeking healthcare. There are places in the world where reporting on your neighbours’ activities is an expectation. There are plenty of us who are too afraid of the consequences to do what Shiphrah and Puah did and simply refuse to comply with policies that harm others. And plenty more of us who don’t look for God in the midst of it, assuming that the political and military and economic powers that seem to rule us are the only gods that matter. But the truth is that the God of Life who may seem to be absent or invisible is indeed present and is acting through the hands of those who keep their eyes and hearts open.

And a man from the house of Levi went and took a Levite daughter, and the woman conceived and bore a son, and she saw that he was goodly, and she hid him three months. And when she could no longer hide him, she took a wicker ark for him, and caulked it with resin and pitch and placed the child in it, and placed it in the reeds by the banks of the Nile. And his sister stationed herself at a distance to see what would be done to him. And Pharaoh’s daughter came down to bathe in the Nile, her maidens walking along the Nile. And she saw the Ark amidst the reeds and sent her slave girl and took it. And she opened it up and saw the child, and, look, it was a lad weeping. And she pitied him and said, “This is one of the children of the Hebrews.” And his sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and summon a nursing woman from the Hebrews that she may suckle the child for you?” And Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Go.” And the girl went and summoned the child’s mother. And Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Carry away this child and suckle him for me, and I myself will pay your wages.” And the woman took the child and suckled him. And the child grew, and she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and he became a son to her, and she called his name Moses, “For from the water I drew him out.”
*So often we love this part of the story, we have pictures of baby Moses in the basket among the reeds, floating along the river…but can we even imagine the horrific experience of trying to save our child’s life by sending them out on the crocodile infested waters and hoping for the best? A situation in which there is no other option than crossing the dangerous waters, when there is no way to live where they are and no way for them to go together to any new life, so she just has to let him go and take herself off to cry in secret?

Honestly we should be able to imagine, even if we don’t want to. Because this is still happening every single day. There are mothers and fathers who have no option but to set out over the dangerous waters, toward hostile places, because staying where they are is certain death. And the truth, however much we don’t want to hear it, is that we are not the Israelites in this story. We are not the ones fearing for our lives, desperate for our children to survive long enough to have a future, seeing no options other than leaving everything and setting out on a dangerous journey to a hostile place just so we can have a hope of living, let alone thriving. Our nations are the ones stationed along the Nile pushing the baskets back out.

Pharaoh’s daughter, though….she, like Shiphrah and Puah, had a very limited role in society and limited choices for how she interacted with the world. Her life was lived in a closed circle, surrounded only by the servants her father chose. She didn’t have any power in the usual ways, she had no voice to speak up against the injustice she heard her father and his government perpetuating, she could easily have considered the whole situation too big for her to do anything about…but when she saw that basket and she heard the cries and she looked on the face of the infant, and she knew instantly what this was: a baby tossed into the Nile at her father’s instruction. And she knew it was wrong, and she made a choice: to defy her father, just as Shiphrah and Puah had done, though she didn’t know them. She knew that she had to choose between life and death, and she picked life. She saw a human being in distress, and she responded to that life in front of her by offering what she had: a welcome, a home, a chance to live.

Given that we live in the empire of this story, how different would this world run by pharaohs be if more of us acted like Pharaoh’s daughter and responded to the distress of the person in front of us with welcome rather than with apathy, fear, dehumanising, or thinking ourselves superior so they deserve their fate out there on the water? We should not assume it’s all too big for us to do anything about, or that we don’t have the chance to do what she did, because for every one of us hearing this story today there are hundreds of mothers and fathers and children setting out on dangerous journeys, hoping against hope that they will encounter someone who will choose life, who will see God’s image in their face, who will offer welcome rather than disdain and hostility.

(**Moses grew up, and when defending an enslaved Israelite he killed an Egyptian, and so he ran away into the wilderness, where he took a wife in the land of Midian.**)

And Moses was herding the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, priest of Midian, and he drove the flock into the wilderness, and came to the mountain of God, to Horeb. And the LORD’s Messenger appeared to him in a flame of fire from the midst of the bush, and he saw, and look, the bush was burning with fire and the bush was not consumed. And Moses thought, “Let me, pray, turn aside that I may see this great sight, why the bush does not burn up.”
*Can you imagine how long Moses looked at the bush before realising it was not consumed? To have noticed it out there off his path, when he was really out there tending the sheep, is remarkable enough. To have turned aside from his job, knowing that sheep wander off and get hurt, that he could lose money because he turned away to do something else, to look at something unusual for long enough to realise it was God…it’s incredible honestly. How many of us would turn off the path of economic security and family responsibility to see something strange God was doing? How many of us would even look up from those responsibilities long enough to notice…despite all the times we have prayed for God to give us a sign? But Moses did notice, in the middle of everything he had to do in his usual workday, and he did turn aside from his everyday routine to see what was going on.

And the LORD saw that he had turned aside to see and God called him from the midst of the bush, and said, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” And he said, “Come no closer here. Take off your sandals from your feet, for the place you are standing on is holy ground.” And he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.”
And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look upon God. And the Lord said, “I indeed have seen the abuse of my people that is in Egypt and its outcry because of its taskmasters. I have heard, for I know its pain. And I have come down to rescue it from the hand of Egypt and to bring it up from that land to a goodly and spacious land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanite and the Hittite and the Amorite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite. And now, look, the outcry of the Israelites has come to me and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them. And now, go that I may send you to Pharaoh, and bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.”
*A quick aside here — how great is it that God says “I have seen my people and their distress, and I am going to save them….now you go over there and save them!” The way God works is through people — sending and empowering and accompanying Moses is how God was present and acting. It’s still true: the way God works is through people.

And Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and that I should bring out the Israelites from Egypt?” And he said, “For I will be with you. And this is the sign for you that I myself have sent you. When you bring the people out from Egypt, you shall worship God on this mountain.” And Moses said to God, “Look, when I come to the Israelites and say to them, ‘the God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they say to me, ‘what is his name?,’ what shall I say to them?” And God said to Moses “ ‘Ehyeh-‘Asher-‘Ehyeh, I-Will-Be-Who-I-Will-Be.”
*Listen to that beautiful set of letters: ‘Ehyeh-‘Asher-‘Ehyeh. Spelling it out is like a breath, no hard consonants, just the breath of life flowing freely…the essence of Being itself. That’s God’s name: Being, the ground of being, the breath that makes life. Without God, there is nothing…because the very verb “Is” wouldn’t exist. God’s name is a verb, one you can’t pin down any more than you can capture breath or wind or spirit. God IS. Uncontrollable, everywhere, most foundational presence and truth of the universe…God is, are, will be…Being.

And he said, “Thus shall you say to the Israelites, ‘ ‘Ehyeh has sent me to you.’” And God said further to Moses, “Thus shall you say to the Israelites: ‘The LORD God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, sent me to you. That is My name forever and thus am I invoked in all ages.’”
*I love how God clarifies here — in case the breath of life, source of being, was too nebulous for the person God was sending to carry out divine power, God reiterates: I am the God of your ancestors, the God who was in relationship with the people of your old stories, the God who worked in and through and for your family…and who continues to be in relationship and to work in and through and for you. God’s identity is best described in relationship with God’s people. We can’t pin down God’s breath or God’s fullness or God’s name so we could use it for our own ends, but we can know God through God’s action in history, through our shared story with people who came before and who are around us now, through the relationship that God has cultivated with us throughout the generations.

And so we come back to the beginning: when we disconnect from our history, from that shared story, we lose touch with the God who is best known in the relationships throughout that story. And it becomes easy to choose to live out another story instead. But the story of God working in and through people is a story of life in the face of death, it’s the story of regular people making whatever small choice for abundant life is available in the moment, even when it seems like they can’t make a difference, even when it feels dangerous, even when they have a lot going on. Without Shiphrah and Puah making their choice for the God of life every day, there’s no Moses. Without Pharaoh’s daughter deciding to use her small bit of privilege to defy Pharaoh’s orders, there’s no Moses. Without Moses turning away from his job and risking his economic security and his family’s displeasure, there’s no human hand or voice for God to use to cry “Let My People Go.” And on and on through time, all the way to today: without us turning aside to see, listening for God’s voice in the midst of everything going on, choosing to act with the God of life rather than all the world’s gods that only bring death…without us carrying on the story of our ancestors in the faith…what will be missing in the future story?

God is the breath who spoke to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to Sarah and Rebecca and Shiphrah and Puah and Pharaoh’s daughter, to Moses and Aaron and Miriam, to Joshua and Samuel and David and Nathan and Bathsheba and Solomon, to the prophets…the word that became flesh in Jesus and gathered the disciples….the breath that spoke to and through Peter and Paul and Lydia and Priscilla and Mark and Matthew and Luke and John…and all the way on down to today. All those faithful people who kept their conversation with God at the fore, and who acted to choose abundant life even in the face of the empire’s power of death…God’s relationship with them, and with us, is what defines defines God’s name for all generations, including the ones still to come.

May it be so. Amen.

For the word of God in scripture
for the word of God among us
for the word of God within us
thanks be to God.

Online Hymn: Our God Was A Refugee (Resound)
*Sanctuary Hymn: There Is A Line Of Women

Sanctuary Offering (choir to sing)

*Sanctuary Offering Response: God Our Creator, vv. 1 & 4 (tune: Bunessan; words: John L Bell & Graham Maule)
God our Creator, you in love made us
who once were nothing but now have grown.
We bring the best of all our lives offer;
for you we share whatever we own.

And with the people summoned together
to be the Church in which faith is sown,
we make our promise to live for Jesus,
and let the world know all are God’s own.

Introducing Rob

Prayer and Lord’s Prayer 
We give you thanks this day, O God,
for you pay attention to this world you have made.
In the beginning you had your hands in the dirt and your breath in our faces,
and it was good.
In every time and place you have been faithful to your people,
leading Abraham and Sarah in the wilderness,
keeping watch over Hagar in the desert,
feeding your people through the ingenuity of Joseph,
saving them through the hands of Shiphrah and Puah,
making the way for a future through the quick thinking of Miriam…
in every generation you are at work,
revealing your care and your presence through the action of your faithful people.
We give you thanks, O God,
for your voice that echoes through history
in the prophets and the ordinary people,
for your Word embodied in Jesus,
for your servants who have carried your good news to every place.
We pray that we might be re-made into your Body
ready to bear your message of hope and justice in this world,
for the need is very great.
Today we must turn our eyes to the reality you call us to see…
and so we lift to our attention, and to yours,
the families with no options, facing choices we do not want to imagine,
who are so desperate to save their children that they will risk anything and endure our hostility;
the women who work behind the scenes,
with no status and no resources beyond their own imagination,
who yet work for abundant life and secretly find ways to stand against oppression and injustice;
the people whose privilege protects them and yet they use it to lift up others,
in defiance of expectations…
without them, there would have been no Moses,
and without them today there will be no future for your people.
We lift to our attention, and yours,
those places where the everyday things we take for granted are an unimaginable dream,
where the neighbours you call us to love are abandoned to rising seas, famine, and war,
where the very people we celebrate at today’s feast go hungry and ignored.
As we pray for and with the whole world today,
do not let us forget them when we leave this place.
For you came among us, word made flesh,
to get as close as humanly possible,
and nothing escapes your attention.
And on this the first day of the month, we join our hearts together as your church family to pray:
*To see your Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven, O God.
*For the Bible Study groups at St John’s, for the Intercessory Prayer Group, that they may encounter you, Living God, in word and prayer.
*For the land, people, and governments of the nations of Scotland, England, Wales, Northern Ireland, and the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands.
*And we pray for Rob as he begins his placement here, and for Charlene as she begins her placement in Largs, that they may learn and grow in their life of ministry among your people.
We pray for our community to be strengthened and built up in friendship,
on the firm foundation of your love.
Make us your Body living and breathing and serving and transforming
this world you so love.
We ask these and all things in the name of the One
who lives good news among us, Jesus the Christ, who taught us to pray together:
Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come,
your will be done on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins,
as we forgive those who sin against us.
Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours, now and forever. Amen.

*Sanctuary Hymn: God It Was

Benediction
Go from this place to pay attention to who and what God has placed in, or near, your path. May you remember the story God has been telling. May you see the image of God in each face. May you find the space to turn aside to see God at work. And may you know the blessing of God’s presence in each and every moment.
And as you go, may the Spirit of God go above you to watch over you. May the Spirit of God go beside you to be your companion. May the Spirit of God go before you to show you the way, and behind you to push you into places you might not go alone. And may the Spirit of God go within you, to remind you that you are loved more deeply than you can possibly imagine. May the fire of God’s love burn brightly in you, and through you into the world. Amen.

Sung Benediction Response (John L Bell, tune Gourock St John’s)
Now may the Lord of all be blessed,
Now may Christ’s gospel be confessed,
Now may the Spirit when we meet
Bless sanctuary and street.

Postlude Music

Announcements

EDICT FOR ORDINATION AND ADMISSION OF ELDER
Mr Joseph Heffernan, a member of this congregation, has been elected to be a ruling elder (and the Kirk Session has judged him to be qualified for that office and has sustained his election)*; Joseph Heffernan has accepted office as elder: if anyone has any objections why this member should not be ordained to office, they state their objection at the meeting of the Kirk Session in the small hall of Gourock: St John’s Church on Sunday, 15th of October, 2023, at 10.40am; if no relevant objection regarding life or doctrine is made and substantiated, the Kirk Session will proceed to the ordination.

* We plan to expand Bowl & Blether to add the 3rd Mondays of the month in the winter months, starting on the 16th of October. This will require a team of volunteers to make soup in the church kitchen in the morning, to make toasties, and to serve soup/toasties/tea/coffee, offering hospitality and a warm cheery chat to anyone who wants to come in through the winter. Please contact Teri if you would be willing to volunteer on the 3rd Mondays of the month over the winter.

* The next Bowl & Blether will be TOMORROW Monday 2 October, doors open at 11:30 and soup and toasties are served between 12-1:30. It’s a great opportunity to get out and meet some friends, invite a neighbour, and have a meal and some social time!

* The next meeting of the Contact Group is this Tuesday, 3 October at 2pm in the large hall. The speaker will be Ailsa Russell who will tell us about her attendance at the South Korea Scout Jamboree last month.  All are welcome at this and any of the meetings held fortnightly. The group’s syllabus is now available from Fiona Webster for a donation of £5.

* There’s a Christian Aid Coffee Morning next Saturday the 7th of October from 10a.m. – 12 noon at Westburn Parish Church. Tickets are £2.50 or pay at the door.

* Next Sunday, 8 October, is our autumn youth service, with youth organisations parading from Binnie Street at 10:25am. You may want to come early to get a good seat to support the young people as they lead the service. 

* A funeral service for Mr Rodger Manson will be held at Old Gourock & Ashton church on Monday the 9th of October at 1pm.

* The Kirk Session will meet on Monday 9 October at 7:30pm.

* Wednesday Evening Bible Study is off this week, and will meet again in the manse on Wednesday 11 October at 7:30pm.

* A funeral service for Mr Norman Leitch will be held at Greenock Crematorium on Thursday the 12th of October at 1pm.

* On Sunday evening the 15th of October at 7pm we will have a special Songs of Praise, with Philip, the praise band, and the Connect+ singing group leading us. If you have any suggestions you’d like to submit, please send them to Teri by next Sunday.

* We worship in the sanctuary on Sundays at 11am, and all Sunday worship is also online. If you are able, please enter by the front door in Bath street, and only those who need step-free access should use the back door. If you feel unwell, please worship online, to protect both yourself and others in our community.

* Starter Packs are short of Shaving Foam, Shampoo, Soap, Toothpaste, Bathroom/Kitchen Cleaner, Kitchen Roll and Teabags. 
The FoodBank are short of biscuits, UHT milk, soup, tinned fish, and tinned meats. You can bring donations to the church and place them into the boxes in the vestibule. Thank you!

* Did you know that the ministry we do at St John’s costs about £3000 per week? Everything we do is funded by your generous giving — all our support for young people, older people, bereavement care, community outreach, worship, study, spiritual growth, and community work is because of your offering. If you would like to set up a standing order in order to facilitate your spiritual discipline of giving, or if you would like to make an extra gift to support the ministry St. John’s does in our parish, you can give online by clicking here. If you would like to set up a standing order, please contact Teri and she can give you the treasurer’s details. You can also send your envelopes to the church or the manse by post and we will ensure they are received. 
It is also possible to donate to the work of the new parish assistant, speak to Anne Love about how to go about directing new donations to that new item in the budget.

* Don’t forget to follow us on Facebook and Youtube, and to sign up for our email devotions! Midweek you can watch Wine and the Word on Youtube, pray with video devotions on Facebook, and consider a new angle on something with a devotional email. Feel free to share with your friends, too!

* Free period products are available in the church toilets for anyone who might need them, thanks to Hey Girls and Inverclyde Council.

* Youth organisations are in full swing, and we are especially looking for new members of the Anchor Boys and the Smurfs (P1-P3, boys and girls respectively). Young people are invited to come along to the Junior Section (P4-P6) of the BB on Monday evenings at 7, Anchor Boys (P1-P3) on Tuesdays at 5:30, Brownies and Guides on Wednesday evenings at 6pm and 7:30pm respectively, Smurfs on Thursdays at 6pm, and Company Section (P7-S6) of the BB on Fridays at 7. For more information on the Boys’ Brigade, email: 2ndgourock@inverclydebb.org.uk , for more information on the Smurfs (pre-Brownies), email Lyn at lyn41185@hotmail.com, and for more information on the Brownies/Guides, visit https://www.girlguidingscotland.org.uk/for-parents/register-your-daughter .

* The Church of Scotland has a new online learning platform called Church of Scotland Learning (more info here). The first set of modules is now available, and are designed with members of local congregations in mind and will help to grow faith, stretch minds and explore possibilities. They are set at an introductory level and accessible for all. We hope this will ignite people’s interest in learning more. Currently available topics include Vows for Elders; Vows for Ministers; Conversations in Discipleship, Exploring Discipleship, Talking About Your Faith; New Ways of Being Church; Knowing You Knowing Me (Learning to understand more fully where God is and what God is calling us to do); Theological Reflection for Everyone; Equality Diversity and Inclusion; and Unconscious Bias and Me. More modules will be added periodically, so sign up today by clicking here!

* Trinity College Glasgow and New College Edinburgh also both offer “short courses” for lay people — there are a variety of interesting modules available for online or in-person participation, including courses on Listening In Mission, worship, New Testament, Mission and our response to Presbytery planning, Creative Writing as a Spiritual Practice, and more. Please become a lifelong learner and dig into some of these opportunities that God is putting in front of us to grow in our faith and life together! 

* Would you be able to host two university students from the USA from 8-11 June, 2024? They will each need their own bed, though they can share a room, and you would be providing them breakfast and dinner, bringing them to church on Sunday, and being a welcoming and engaging host as they get a cultural exchange experience. There would be some financial help to cover the food expenses. If you might be interested, please be in touch with Teri or Seonaid Knox, so we have a sense of how many students we can host.