Newsletter July 2011
 Hi there everyone and welcome to this
month's summer newsletter. It has not been a great week for
our holiday club in regard to the sunshine but in every
other way it has been a wonderful week to be a
“landlubber” down at the Tron Kirk with up to 40 primary
aged children coming along each day to play games, do
crafts and learn about a man called Paul who had his life
transformed by the Lord Jesus Christ. The holiday club at Tron finishes at 3pm and as the kids head home safe with
mum Maggie Hunt (our student minister with us for the
summer months as part of her training) and I head up to
take part in “StageNslam” our annual event held at
Gracemount High School and the Hub in Gilmerton for
teenagers. We have seen around 90 teens joining us for
sports, drama, singing, dancing and crazy games all
afternoon from 1-4pm at the school before heading over to
the church at Ravenscroft Street to eat and dance and sing
before sitting to hear one of the team share the gospel of
the Lord Jesus with these teenagers in a way that is so
cool and biblical in equal measure. Last July 18 young
people committed their lives to Christ and I really
believe that the King of Kings is touching even more
hearts this year!
It has really been a busy time over
the last 3 weeks because of course I went away for my
first ever annual camp with the Army Cadet Force down near
Liverpool. In April this year I was accepted to be Padre
to the Lothian and Borders ACF and the Kirk Session of
Tron Kirk Gilmerton and Moredun agreed to allow me to go
away with them using part of my holiday allowance to be
with the 300 teenager cadets and the 100 adult leaders. It
was an incredible experience to be able to share with them
all in the morning parade the great good news of Christ as
they went out to start their day. I was so touched to be
accepted into their hearts as their Padre and during the
fortnight I spent down there doing a 16 hour day
participating in all their activities, chatting to the
kids and adults alike about why I had become their Padre,
God gave me some brilliant opportunities to really talk at
a deeper level about faith in Him and be salt and light in
their midst. I was really blown away by the massive
commitment the leaders give every week to enrich the young
people’s lives and have truly discovered that the ACF is
an organisation which has a really positive effect in the
lives of the young folks in their organisation. If I heard
it once I heard it 50 times- “as long as the kids are
enjoying it that is all we ask”.
Included in this newsletter is a
short biographical piece about Ivor Forrest who has come
to worship and serve at our churches alongside of me in a
similar fashion to Janet and Mary who are renting the Tron
Kirk manse from us. Ivor and I have only known each other
4 years but in that time he and I have become firm friends
and I look forward to him and his wife Denise becoming
more and more engaged in the work of the Church as the
days go by. Ivor will be helping out with preaching and
pastoral care in the first instance but later on his role
will become more diverse as we seek to create mission and
outreach to some of the people in the community around us
who are fighting great battles with addiction and other
issues. With Ivor now as part of the ministry team we can
now re-visit the job description of the Parish worker
which was promised to us when the union between Tron and
Gilmerton was being finalised by head office and the
presbytery last year.
During the last week of the school
term Ruth Rankin our Arts worker at the Hub with the
enthusiastic help of around 25 local youth staged an
adaptation of Mary Poppins which went down a storm over
four nights at the venue. What a fantastic finish to the
season for Ruth and all the budding actors and actresses
as the crowd each night showed their appreciation of the
dance, songs and most positive life message of the
musical. There will most likely be at least one more show
before Christmas and perhaps a bit more input to
congregational worship like they did last remembrance
Sunday to come and I look forward to all of that.
In a few weeks time we will start a
new Alpha at Gilmerton. This will be the fourth with two
at Tron and one at the Hub already completed. We will be
delivering about 1400 of the Alpha newspaper with a Tron
Kirk invitation stapled to the front of it. The response
to these invitations has been very poor but we will carry
on with the delivery of them until the whole of Gilmerton
and Moredun has been invited at least once to come and
seek Jesus. We cannot even “lead the horse to water” in
these matters but we can and will seek to continually be
an “Inviting Church”. We can’t be found to be sitting back
sitting on our hands whilst the vast majority of the
population in our parish are missing out on the good news
of the wonderful Lord Jesus.
Later this summer once the schools
have gone back, myself and a young lady from Morningside
Baptist church called Sara Beech will start the basketball
club at the Tron Hall. We have just received a £600
donation from Mayfield Salisbury Church to buy really good
basketball equipment. Our target group are P6 to S1 pupils
many of whom Sarah has already done coaching with at
Craigour and Gilmerton Primary schools. It will run from
4.30 until 6pm each Thursday from August till December as
a pilot project and if that seems to be cutting the
proverbial mustard we will settle it as a permanent part
of the Tron Kirk’ outreach programme. Each week will be 1
hour and 20 minutes basketball and for 5 minutes during
the water break there will be a short message about the
Christ,” who came into this world that we might not perish
but have eternal life”.(John 3 verse 16). The Wednesday
mother and toddlers group at the Hub has been going well
and we now alternate each week between MOPS (mother of
pre-school children) and little acorns. This gives us an
opportunity each week to have a bit of teaching and
sharing at a deeper level with the mums who come on
subjects such as-“The five love languages of children”.
This group is led by Anna with a number of good friends
from Tron and a couple of other church members to provide
crèche cover.
As you can imagine this all makes
life and church most interesting indeed and at times we
are more than a little stretched but so far the Lord has
never failed to provide what we need when we need it that
the Great Commission might be carried out in this our
Parish. If you know anyone who would benefit from any of
the activities and groups or who might be interested
please ask them to call me on
0131 664 7538 or 07838 912 361
and I will help them to speak to the right people. While I
am on the subject of numbers might I really implore you if
you are a member of Tron Kirk to call me if you would like
me to pay a visit? I am keen to be available to all our
members for the routine visits as well as the more urgent
ones so that we are getting to know each other better as
well as reaching out to bring new people into the church.
With the addition of the Sunday evening service at
Gilmerton at 5pm I now feel that there are two most
acceptable opportunities to meet together publicly for
worship, teaching and fellowship. Please if you are able
come along to church and be part of what God is doing and
whether you are able to come or not please pray that the
Lord would be glorified in all our lives and in our
efforts to be available as vessels though which the Lord
can work. Cammy Mackenzie , your friend and minister.
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