Hi,
It's a busy Magazine this week and that's a good thing, as it reflects life opening up a bit more, for those getting to school, and work, and now Uni and College too. I've included part of an article from Kevin de Young - The Most Important Decision You’re Probably Not Thinking About. He says himself that it was aimed at students, but then realised it was a message for everyone, and when you read a line like, 'If you want to be much less of a follower of Jesus Christ five years from now, make church marginal in your life', it certainly come across as timely word for everyone.
Some of our young people are heading off for the first time, and others going back to Uni after the Summer - of course for many, it will be a 'proper' experience of student life this year with most restrictions having lifted - hope so anyway. However, what a proper student life is can be a real trial for young people wanting to be faithful to the Lord Jesus and live life worthy of His calling. I added in below the article a quote from Carl Trueman which I think highlights the pressures they are under and I hope you will use it as a spur to pray for them. Remarkably, it was written nearly 10 years ago and has proven to be so accurate.
For one reason or another Prayer seems to be a theme running through the magazine this week...what's God telling us?
Enjoy the mag!
MB
From the Manse
Dear Congregation, 
When the incarnate Jesus prayed to God during His life, He was always heard and there was always a response from God. Except on the cross when Jesus bore God’s wrath for the sin of humanity, God was never silent. Why was there always open and free, loving communication? Because Jesus was the Son of God. God was His Father, His Sovereign, loving Father. On one occasion God the Father declared audibly, “You are my beloved Son” (Mark 1.11).
Why would (and could) Jesus say in the garden of Gethsemene, “Thy will be done” when He knew that such a prayer would lead Him to the awfulness of the cross? Jesus would pray this (and could pray this) because God was His loving Father in whom He trusted with every oxygenated droplet of blood He possessed. Jesus the Son: God the Father.
It is beyond astonishing that when any of us are brought to faith in Jesus Christ we become children of God. Not now only children of God by virtue of creation, but a child of God by virtue adoption where a new relationship of care and love is established by God.
It is in the Lord’s prayer Jesus wonderfully teaches us to call God “our Father”. The Apostle Paul is bowled over by the astonishing truth that though we are born orphans and strangers to God, God adopts us to be His sons and daughters (have you noticed the precious reality of Romans 8.15-17, 23-25, Galatians 3.26-29).
And the point? That wonderful free and full access which Jesus enjoyed with God His Father, by our union with Jesus through faith, we also have right and delight to. We can speak to God our Father and know we are heard and know He answers!
I am so keen that we read a short book by Willie Philip minister at The Tron Church, Glasgow, “Why We Pray”. I gain nothing personally from you reading this book, but I think you will gain immensely.
This is not a book on how to pray but as the title says, why we pray.
It is not a book that tells us we ought to pray more. It is a book that stirs the hearts of believers and reminds us that not only do we actually want to pray, but we actually do want to pray more!
Please email the office for a copy and we shall make sure you get one. I will have the books at church on Sunday and you can take one at the door.
On a different matter…
You know now that there is no need to register in advance to attend worship. Just turn up – we will love to see you! We are however recording all who are present just in case we need to a “track and trace” process. (We dispose of that record after three weeks.) There is a manual process of recording who is present and the door team attend to this when you enter. However, we would love you to make their job easier by using the “QR code” displayed at the entrance or inside the sanctuary.
When you open up your camera app on your phone and point it at the QR code, amazingly a wee message pops up inviting you to a web page where you can input your name and phone number. When you have done this once the information pops up automatically when you go to the website in future Sundays. It really is straightforward when you have done it successfully once. Have you had difficulty? We shall have someone on standby to help you this Sunday. We have a manual system as back-up, so all welcome even if QR codes and cameras are not your thing!
We have resumed our in-person prayer meeting on a Wednesday night at 7.15pm. For this short term we shall meet in the Main Hall (however, Wednesday 8th September will be in The Castle Suite). We hope you can make it!
We are also planning the resumption of other church activities.
We are in conversation about our mid-week Toddlers and Castle Coffee Club (see below) and on Sundays we are working towards resuming Hizkidz indoors and a creche. Watch this space!
I am encouraging all our group leaders to make our website calendar up to date and accurate! Hopefully it will be a useful tool for us as a congregation. Have a look here.
Service of Profession of Faith
We are planning for a service of profession of faith (and baptism if required). If this is something you would like to know more about, or have already been thinking and praying about this, please contact Scott or Daniel.
HAVE YOU ORDERED YOURS YET? Copies are £6 each - order now from office.
Email the office to have your copy on standby (maxwellmearns@hotmail.com).
Reading Plan: This link takes you to a reading plan to read in bite size chunks (with others?). Download and print off or ask Margaret Boyd for a copy.
And as an encouragement to get the book and build up your prayer life with confidence here is a brilliant, and short 'Prayer 101' video clip from Don Carson. Watch here
Jamie Kimmet - Update
Many of you will know that a few days ago Jamie Kimmet was involved in a serious car crash. It was a real shock mixed with relief to receive this message in Maxwell's Pray Now Whats App page.
"Jamie Kimmett was involved in a serious car accident and hit by an 18 wheeler truck on Friday evening whilst driving home from a concert in Arkansas. He was airlifted by helicopter and rushed to the ER dept of a nearby hospital. He is currently in a stable condition with doctors describing the fact he survived as “remarkable” and “1000-1”
Jamie is recovering well although faced by hefty medical charges - details of how you can help him in that regard are below.
Jamie wrote the following on Facebook:
"PRAISE GOD!! HE HAS SPARED MY LIFE BY A MIRACLE! So grateful to be alive and so grateful for every one of you who have prayed for me, sent messages, left comments and donated at this time. Your kindness and support is overwhelming! I am now at home and miraculously have zero broken bones or internal damage! I have painful cuts, bruising, stitches, muscle/joint pain and still picking glass & concrete off my head and body…but given the odds of survival this is truly amazing. Please pray my left hand and thumb (Guitar chord hand) in particular will heal as its badly cut and stitched up. We just received the first medical bill which is currently $27,833.98. This is the initial hospital cost and does not include the physician, helicopter airlift and other expenses so your amazing generosity to the GoFundMe is greatly appreciated...I can’t thank you all enough. I won't be on here (Facebook) too much as I need to rest but I just wanted to say massive thank you to you all. I guess God is not done with me yet. OUR GOD REIGNS!
“The Lord will keep you from all harm- he will watch over your life; the Lord will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore.” Psalm 121:7-8
PS we are committed to giving detailed and fully transparent medical costing and soon as we get it will post updates on the GoFundMe
page.
Jamie
Ladybird Book of Maxwell
Praying for Afghanistan
Even those of us who do not pray very often may feel ourselves being drawn to pray for Afghanistan. We may bring many varied and valid burdens before the Lord in these prayers.
However, have we ever realized there actually is a Christian population in Afghanistan, Christ's Church. Quite a thought. She has had a painful existence. The prospect of Taliban rule again would be daunting if she had not been birthed by her sovereign Lord Jesus.
SIM encourages us to pray for Afghanistan.
Have a look at this
article. There are prayer points at the foot.
There are also some facts in
Operation World that might help us to pray also (though these facts have not been updated since this most recent Taliban take-over).
The Most Important Decision You’re Probably Not Thinking About
This article from Kevin de Young was aimed at young people heading for Uni or College...but even de Young saw that it was much much wider than that. It's for everyone - for us each to reflect and to pray for others.
This is a season of milestones for many of you. Final papers. Final exams. Last games, last meets, last classes. You’ve worked hard to get to this point. And you are probably working hard for what is coming next. For most of you that’s college or university. You’ll get ready over the summer. You’ll buy some dorm furniture. You’ll say goodbye to your friends. You’ll say goodbye to your parents. You’ll find your way around a new school and a new place. For many of you, it will mean a new city or a new state. You are making preparations for all that lies ahead. After filling out forms, sending in applications, and narrowing down your choices, you finally made your decision. And in a few months, you’ll start something–whether that’s school close by, or school far away, a gap year, or something else.
You are probably tired of making big decisions. But I want to remind you of one colossal decision that is coming your way. The decision doesn’t seem earth shattering. In fact, it seems much less important than a hundred other decisions you’ve had to make in the last year. It’s a decision so much an afterthought for most graduating seniors that many of you have not even considered it.
Here’s the decision you’ll have to make in a few months:
You are living on your own–in a dorm or in an apartment somewhere. You’ve unloaded your stuff. You’ve met your roommate. You’ve signed up for classes. You’ve had a few meals in the cafeteria. You’ve endured days of boring orientation activities. You’ve done some of the awkward pre-planned fun and games. And after a short night of sleep on your first Saturday in this new phase of your life, you wake up Sunday morning. What are you going to do?
Of all the decisions you’ll face this year, the most important one may be whether you get up and go to church on the very first Sunday when no one is there to make sure that you go to church.
We saw students who started at church and didn’t last. But we rarely saw students who didn’t start at church and eventually made it there. What you do in those first weeks on your own, especially what you do with your commitment to a local church, will set you on a trajectory where Jesus Christ will truly be Lord of your life or where he will be something that you learned as a young person and then left behind.
You need to decide before you leave home, what will I do on that first Sunday morning. Don’t wait until that moment to decide, because you’ll probably decide you’re tired, or you don’t have a car, or you don’t know where to go, or you’ll get to it next week. Decide before that Sunday what you will do on that Sunday. You’ll be making all sorts of plans this summer, and one of the most important decisions you may ever make is what you will be committed to that first week and those first months. Will you get up and go to church–not just chapel, not just campus ministry–but a local church, where the people aren’t all your age, where the music isn’t all your style, where the pastor may not be everything you’d want him to be?
I hope to impart a Christian worldview to my children. But do you know what may be even more important than getting them to think the right things? It’s getting them to instinctively embrace the right rhythms. The most powerful influences in your life are often the things you don’t even think about, the things you do out of habit, the things you do because you always do them, whether someone makes you do them or not.
We are formed not just by thoughts but by habits–study habits, exercise habits, social media habits, personal hygiene habits. These may not be planks in our worldview, but they shape us just as much or even more. It’s just what we do. And in time what we do becomes who we are. Will the local church be one of your habits in the next year? There are plenty of lukewarm Christians sitting in churches every week across this country. That’s not the goal. But you want to know where you can find passionate, on fire, totally sold-out Christians? In church. In fact, you won’t find them anywhere else.
If you want to be much less of a follower of Jesus Christ five years from now, make church marginal in your life. If you make church an afterthought, you won’t be thinking about centreing your life on Jesus five years from now. Don’t give up meeting together as some are in the habit of doing (Heb. 10:25).
Full article here.
Castle Coffee Club
The Castle Coffee Club hasn’t been able to meet in person since March 2019 although we have had two Zoom meetings. We feel we are now in a position to plan for reopening and plan to recommence on Tuesday 5th October in the Maxwell Hall.
Obviously these plans will remain fluid depending on the coronavirus situation and will be reviewed on a weekly basis. We would appreciate the prayers of the congregation for wisdom in all the decisions that have to be made.
As part of the reopening plans we are looking for more volunteers, for help setting up and serving, and bakers who could supply some home baking. Neither of these roles require a weekly commitment, even once a month would be really helpful.
We have had a fantastic loyal group of volunteers over the 4 years the club has run but several find they are to no longer able to commit themselves to this ministry. We would like to express our appreciation to every one of them!
If you feel you are able to help in any way please get in touch with me. Our guests are really looking forward to coming back and we are looking forward to welcoming new guests too.
Thanks on behalf of the steering group
Elizabeth Smith Mob:07761114987 Email:ejs54@hotmail.co.uk
COP 26 and Street Pastors
Glasgow Street Pastors & Glasgow Presbytery Serving at COP 26 (UN Climate Change Conference)
(1-12 November 2021)
During COP 26 Glasgow City Centre will be busy with guests from across the world attending the conference. Glasgow Street Pastors has been ‘listening, caring and helping’ on the streets of Glasgow for the past 12 years assisting individuals who become vulnerable or require assistance for a variety of reasons. The work is done by committed Christians, minimum age 18, from a wide range of church backgrounds, united in a desire to demonstrate the love and compassion of God in very practical acts of service.
Volunteers from churches in the Glasgow Presbytery are invited to join with Street Pastors to provide an additional caring presence on the city streets. Working with experienced Street Pastors, you will have the opportunity to be involved in a two-hour afternoon patrol (1-3pm) or three-hour evening patrol. (8-11pm)
An application
form can be obtained here (Info leaflet
here.) Scott will be contacted for a brief comment in support of your application.
A training day has been arranged on Saturday 2 October at Sandyford Henderson Memorial Church from 10:00-15:00. Attendance is essential.
Return to The Hiding Place
RETURN TO THE HIDING PLACE is said to be one of the most exciting, riveting, edge-of-your seat World War II movies ever made. THE HIDING PLACE movie, which was a great success, focused on Corrie ten Boom, who with her father and sister saved many Jews during World War II.
Full review
here.
THURSDAY 23 SEPTEMBER
7.30pm at CATHCART TRINITY CHURCH
SEARCHLIGHT THEATRE CO present ‘RETURN TO THE HIDING PLACE'
Tickets are now on sale via Eventbrite - click here
Saturday 30th October
WTTB will be coming to Maxwell on 30th October 2021 to walk us through the Old Testament.
Everyone of all age groups are welcome and more information will be provided closer to the time.
For now just get the date in the diary and block it off. This event is invaluable for everyone to understand the OT timeline, it's message and be taught how to communicate that to our friends and family in a really clear and helpful manner.
Daniel
Prayer Meeting – The Pulse:
Wednesday evening at 7.15-8.30pm.
We hope you can make it!
If you have a matter that you would like to be prayed about in this way, you can contact Margaret Boyd or Scott and they will organise for news to be sent out.
If you want to be added to the group to receive prayer news then simply ask Margaret and she will add your number to the list.