Mearns Kirk

At the end of November, Presbytery asked me to serve as your ‘interim’ Interim  Moderator, mainly to be with you during the conversations that are taking place  around the future of the churches in the cluster. For various reasons this process  has taken longer than any of us envisaged although, as you’ll read elsewhere in  this newsletter, we hope to be able to report some progress very soon.

In the meantime, I’ve been appointed as Interim Moderator on a more permanent  basis which means, God willing, I’ll be with you through the cluster process and  until a new minister is chosen and inducted. Having preached at Mearns Kirk a couple of times last year I’m very happy about this.

I enjoyed being with you for those two services, found everyone very friendly and  thought there was a lovely warm atmosphere in the church. We are very  fortunate, of course, to have Eddie as our locum and he will continue to do the  bulk of the pastoral work and the preaching. But I hope Eddie doesn’t feel I’m  following him around! A number of years ago when he stepped down from his  role as a chaplain at Barlinnie I applied for, and got, his position. A couple of  years later this led me to the full-time chaplaincy at Low Moss Prison in Bishopbriggs, a post from which I retired last October. And now, here I am again,  following Eddie to Mearns Kirk, although this time I’m glad to say I’ll be working  alongside him.

I’m sorry there’s not much more to say at this stage about the future of Mearns  Kirk and the other churches in the area but we will know more soon.

We know  that things are going to change, as they are everywhere. Things are going to be  different in the future. But I hope that, whatever changes take place, we will not  only embrace them but be inspired and energised by them. This is Easter after all, the time of year when we remember that resurrection is what God does. We  have a God who is in the resurrection business and ever since Jesus rose from  the dead that first Easter, God has been resurrecting his Church constantly - and  dynamically and surprisingly! Change is often uncomfortable but it can also be  very exciting. So I hope and pray we can all respond enthusiastically to whatever the future holds and to the journey God lays out before us. And, remember, the  last words Jesus spoke to his disciples at the end of Matthew’s Gospel contain a  promise that Jesus has never broken and never will: ‘I will be with you always,  even to the end of the age.’
With every blessing to you