I wrote about structures a few weeks ago. I think we need to realise that changing the structures alone, will not change the church. Tomorrow night at Kirk Session will be quite an important evening. The Kirk Session re-structing group will be reporting back. The plan is that they will give out the papers for the future structure and we will agree a date when we can meet in conference to discuss the implications. We need to allow the Holy Spirit to fire us up so that the structures we put in place support the mission and calling of the church rather than hamper it.

Its all very exciting. Kirk Session agreed that we look at how we manage our various projects and come back with a strategy as to how we manage them in the future. We’ll be looking for a decision in principle tomorrow night to go ahead and launch our new media company, as a not for profit trading company. This will deal with all the additional work that we have been carrying out of the past years. When Kirk Session have heard all the details and approved them we’ll give out more details.

Anyway these are exciting times here at St Andrew’s. Tonight was quite a special evening. It was great to have a joint praise night with our friends from the Apostolic Church. The next one will be 19 October when we hope to be welcoming Erica and lorna back home after their 15 month trip around the world.

This will be a great evening to hear new songs and to celebrate all that God has been doing in the lives of Soultouch. So pass the word around. It would be great if we could have the church full that evening.

Yesterday well over 1000 people walked the Forth Road Bridge to raise money for Christian Aid. I’m told if all the money is collected that has been promised from the sponsors,it will amount to £41,000. What I say is, not bad for an afternoon’s work.

It was also an opportunity for folk to reflect on Rev John Carrie who died earlier this year. John set up the whole project. It was good to see the Lord Provest of Edinburgh turn out to do the walk and also pay tribute to John. He reminded us that John not only walked the walk but talked the talk. (See my posting under 23 June 2007.) The fact that it has continued this year despite the fact that the Road Bridge was closed for repairs, shows that people are enthusiastic to keep the tradition going.

It was a walk down memory lane all day, as I got a chance to push Katie MacLennan in her push chair, it brought back memories of the Bogles pushing prams across the bridge some 25 years ago. One thing I did notice was the the push chairs today are a lot easier to handle. As for the children today - are they easier to handle? Well I think that’s a subject for another post.