Time just seems to fly by. I’ve not been as diligent as I should be about keeping the blog up to date. We have a lot of interesting things brewing over here in Bo’ness. Apart from all the re-structuring, we are also making plans for a brand new contemporary worship service to be called SANCTUARY FIRST.

Its all about putting worship back in first place in our lives. SANCTUARY FIRST seeks to help us do this by committing to a monthly multimedia worship service that explores the purpose and benefits of a variety of worship formats ranging from contemporary to ancient aspects of worship.. There will very shortly be a new web page and also weekly podcasts exploring the themes that are tackled at the SANCTUARY FIRST services. we hope that this will eventually offer daily devotions. It is our desire that SANCTUARY FIRST will go on the road and be a blessing to a wider range of people.

On Friday last Willie McPherson and myself were invited to the Bo’ness Town Hall for a Civic Reception held in honour of the work of Vine Trust and our Branches Shop. Both Willie and I were quite surprised to discover that we were to be presented with medals from the Council in recognition of the work that has been carried out over the past 21 years and especially the work that has been developed in Peru over the last five or six years. It was a wonderful gesture by he Council to recognise the work of the Trust in this way. Below is a picture of the Falkirk Council’s Heroes Medal. In many ways for me the real heroes are the ladies who go down to work in the shop week in week out. Some of them have been doing their shift from the day the shop opened in 1985. Branches gave the first £10,000 to help purchase the first Amazon Hope. Once again Branches is exploring some new and exciting methods of fund raising. We have just commissioned a Scottish designer to work with some of Peruvian artisans to design a collection of original jewelery representing the areas of Peru that the Vine Trust have built homes. We hope that Branches will go on line as a business soon and this jewelery will be available before Christmas.

Here we are talking about structures again. However the right structures can give to everyone a sense of freedom as well as security. I just wish the way we ordered Church in the Church of Scotland released us into freedom and community. Too much of our structures are centred around business meetings rather than the love feast. we celebrate business more than we celebrate the eucharist. It is this image of a business structure that has shaped the identity of the church of Scotland for the past few hundred years. Now there is definately nothing wrong with being business like and well structured but often in the midst of all this we have forgotton what our business is. Remember Jesus reminded his parents that his first priority was to be about his Father’s business. When we think about it the Father’s business is that we should make disciples.

We need to ask ourselves why we have allowed the structures of business to become the main focus of our identity rather than the vision to make disciples. I have often thought that perhaps it is because we have lost confidence as a Church and and as indiiduals in the truth of the Gospel. this in turn makes us less willing to share with others something we might doubt. However we are not short on our loyality to the structures of an organisation that at one time had put in place to ensure the pastoral support required for discipleship. Could it be that we maintain the structures out of loyality, going through the motions of faith without the conviction of faith.

We even name our church through our structure. We call ourselves Presbyterians. Wil Storrar, draws our attention to the fact that the church has orientated towards this business effeciency model because of the influence of Weber’s “rational bureaucratic” type modern organisation.

I’ve been thinking about the role of leadership , in the light of Nehemiah and especially, when an organisation, like St Andrew’s is in the middle of restructuring.

One of the differences between the church leader today and Nehemiah’s time is that we have the encouragement of the scriptures and perhaps a greater awareness of what it means to be ” The One and the Many in Christ” In other words the teaching found in 1 Corinthians 12 under pins and helps to illuminate the story of partnership and purpose that is told in the story of Nehemiah’s reconstruction.

So our calling as the church is literally to be the one and the many in Christ. This is an important aspect of our identity, because as a church community we take on many roles. I think this is what Paul means when he says,” I have become all things to all men that I might win some” It doesn’t mean that we stand for nothing and fall for anything. On the contrary, it means that we take on the role of our Lord and learn to ” weep with those who are weeping and laugh with those who are laughing” Its about the church understanding its mission in the world. This means that we must always be approachable even to those who have different “plausibility structures” to ours. The fascinating thing is that a whole philosophy of servanthood has grown up even in the business world. Have a look at this web page also

All we do must be motivated by a desire to bring glory to God through our service to others. This for me emphasises more and more the role of the church as servant and discipleship maker, such was the life that Jesus chose to live. We as a church cannot become greater than our master. However we have a dilemma. In our structures we have lost the role of credible servant and succumbed to the role of professional managerial speak. We manage the church but are we serving each other and the world ?

Tonight we had another meeting of our structural meeting. As we talked about being good managers of our structure we were also reminded that we were a community centred around love and grace. Meeting targets might be important but missing the main target of servanthood would render us as the scripture says, “no more than noisy bells and clanging cymbols” We must be careful that we don’t forget what it means to love the world and love our neighbour, as we seek to manage the church. Next post I’ll have a a think about the changes that we might do well to consider at a regional level in church administration and structure.

We had a very interesting weekend at church. The Must Be More Festival turned out to be an interesting start to the coming church session. I pray that we are on the right tracks.

At present we’re in the midst of a capacity building exercise. This calls us to look at the way we organise ourselves so that we can become more effective as an organisation. I’ll tell you more about this in the coming weeks.

We have come to the conclusion that we need to be continually reviewing the way we structure ministry. The picture of scaffolding on the left is one that I saw in India last year. It was pretty dangerous looking, made up of pieces of wood tied together with rope. Got me thinking that while the structure needs to be flexible it also requires to have an element of security about it. However the structure cannot in the end determine the shape and the purpose of the organisation. The shape and vision must determine the structure required to support its function.

Part of our vision in St Andrew’s is making church relevant for those with young families this  is one of our priorities as a church. The Children’s Holiday Club was well attended last week and it was great to see many of the children and their parents return to church for the Sunday service. We need to be reflecting on the right things to do that will keep attracting the children to worship. I’ve noticed thatwe don’t always get the same children eturning i the following weeks to the Holiday Club. the question is do we need to change the way we do Children’s ministry?

Got me thinking about how we do church at the present. At one time we used to have three services on a Sunday. An early morning one which was especially focused on young families. We ran it for nearly seven years. Eventually we merged the two services. Sunday morning last week was a great service focused on the children, it got me thinking about how we might further develop such services in the future. I must say a big thank you to Craig Hannah and his team for doing such a great job.

This week I’ve started working on a series of sermons centred around the book of Nehemiah. I think it is going to be very useful to us all as we consider this winter what is going to be the way forward for us as a congregation. We have had a group looking at the refurbishment of our present building to help us bring it up to standard for the 21st century. We also have a group as i mentioned before looking at the way we organise our administration. The shape of all this is determined by our vision.

I’m looking forward to exploring all this with the congregation. Nehemiah is all about rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem. There will be lessons for us all to learn as we consider the walls that we need to rebuild in our ministry and the ones we need to tear down in order to fulfill our ministry to be a local congregation with a global calling. We’d love to hear from others who are going through a restructuring. there is much no doubt we can learn.

Well you may recall that I mentioned a few weeks ago that the Bogle Band had started gigging again after having a few years off,or as they say in the business “resting”.

Well here is a short video of the trip we made “doon the watter” and the music in the background is the Bogle Band playing the song “Brave Hearts” live. If you like what your hearing you can hear us playing again this Saturday at St Andrew’s Bo’ness. We’re playing at the “There Must Be More Festival” There’s a barbecue in the church garden at 6.30pm and the concerts starts at 7.30 in the church.

We’re also delighted that Vangel will be performimg with us. The whole weekend Festival is trying to encourage more people to think outside the box and discover their potential. On Friday Night a number of young peole who were in India visiting our partners there will be giving their feedback on their trip. I think its going to be a great night. On Sunday I’m looking forward to having a joint Praise Band, made up between St Andrew’s and the Apostolics in Bo’ness leading us in a gread night of praise and worship. So if you want something more than you’ve got ! See you Sunday Night.

Meanwhile pray for an old rocker who seems to be turning a bit folky with age, pray that he’ll remember his words on Saturday or have good inspiration to write better words.

It won’t belong before the children are all back at school. On Monday our Holiday Club for children starts. The theme is very topical this year, we are looking at the Olympics. you know what it could get complicated. Like thousands of others throughout the UK we are using Scripture Union Holiday Club material. So what will make our Holiday Club unique, apart from the brilliant children who will attend and the superb quality of leaders? What will make our club stand out is the fantastic job that the design team have made in decorating the church hall. It is truly something else. Quite amazing! It is a work of art.

The Olympics s a great theme to use at this time to explain to children the importance of nations living together in peace. It also highlights the merit in human beings striving to be the best in their aea of sport. However we will be helping the children understand that winning at any cost can turn you into a loser. Winning is about doing the right thing. Now sometimes when you do the right thing you lose. But you know what sometimes losing is a form of winning. See what I mean it does get complicated. Anyway we’ll keep it to that level with the kids.

We are told that the ancient Greeks were highly competitive individuals and believed strongly in the concept of “agon”, or “competition” or “contest”. Greeks wanted to bethe best in all aspects of life. The greatest honour of all time was to win a victory at Olympia. It was important that the prize eceived had no material value. Tus the olive wreath given to the victory illustrates the point. You competed for the honour. All this makes the ever increasing habit of cheating so repugnant to the ideals of the games. the games were also closely connected to the worship of the gods and departed heroes. sometimes the games where known as funeral games. Homer in his epic poem, The Iliad refers to the games in these terms. They also had sexual undertones, being used as gatherings to promote the fertility cults of the day. The power god Zeus was the god most worshipped at the games.

In many ways the games are a bit of a contradiction. They have become an important political weapon to promote economic wealth. Many of the athletes taking part are professional and see the games as a means of developing their careers. For the Olympics the age of innocence is long gone if they ever represented it in the first place. Yet I think there is a spark of an ideal worth holding on to and maybe one day it will light a true Olympic torch in the world. Did Jesus not say He was the Light of the World. He’s brighter than any Olympic torch!