Are you wondering what worship is going to be like at the CWW National Gathering. Well I’m delighted that Keith Tait will be the leader of the worship band. keith has chosen songs that are well known in order that the opening ceremony will have a sense of familiarity to it. I spoken to Michele Guinness and she is working on a them of joy and celebration. So I think we’re in for a wonderful opening ceremony. Its great also that my good friend David Lacy from Kilmarnock will be representing the Moderator and bring the greetings of the general Assembly to the whole event. So just to keep you up to date, here is the latest here a little meditation developed out of words I wrote for a song we recorded in the late eighties from the Run Scared No More Album. I think you can guess hymn that will follow this presentation. Click here to listen

Have a look at the site, for the CWW National Gathering. It is beginning to look impressive. All the tents have been erected and it really does make you feel that God is in all of this. I think it will be an amazing sight to see so many churches represented at Ingliston. Hillington Park Parish in Glasgow have their overseas partner Rita Nkemba from Dwelling Places in Uganda with them. Rita is the Director of this Charity that works with around 500 street children in Kampala.

In one of the other tents highlighting Holy Trinity Parish in St Andrew’s, a group of visitors, all he way from Argentina will be sharing their story how their ancestors left Leith in 1825 to set up a colony of Scots in the Argentine. Today in Buenos Aires a thriving Congregation called St Andrew’s is making an impact in that great city. They have twinned now with the St Andrew’s congregation thus developing their historical links. However it is often out of these links that congregations are challenged to develop spiritually.

In a press release relating to the National Gathering , I mentioned that I thought there was “a holy discontent” in the nation. The phrase has been picked up by a few people. What do you mean they say by a holy discontent. Well I think God is at work in all our lives making many of us discontented with the way things are in our society, but also our personal lives. All of us need to become much more realistic about what we can do to make changes in our own lives and in our communities. Individuals can make a huge difference in our world. On a visit to India in 2006 I witnessed first hand the devastation that the Tsunami had brought upon people. It had completely changed the landscape. A few months ago I visited a hotel that I had used in Peru quite near to the city of Ica.During the recent earthquake, there had also been a Tsunami. The hotel was completely destroyed. The whole landscape  had changed. Len Sweet in his book entitled “Soul Tsunami ” invites the church to prepare to live in a new ordered landscape. He suggests that there has been a great technological revolution that has changed the way we all live.  Soul Tsunami is a challenging book to read. I think Christians today need to understand the changes in the landscape in which we live. Church is no longer for many the centre of their life. Yet the message we want to speak about is all about helping people get  their lives centred or secured to something that is constant and not changing. I feel this sense of  ”holy discontent because I believe God is calling the church to the place of confession.  And individuals to a place of  repentance and restitution. As we seek God, we need to be allowing his Holy Spirit to begin to break our lives open and almost allow a Tsunami cleansing of the soul. Here is the latest version of a song that Iain and I are working on. I’m delighted that Stephen Bogle plays his mighty Fender Jazz guitar in this track giving the whole piece a sense of  edgy power  and vulnerability. I also like the strong vocals from Iain Jamieson that  sound like a huge big choir. Oh that God would come among us and reshape and renew the church. Please Lord start with me. Tsunami