Minister’s Message 15 February
Dear Friends
It has been a while since I've had to write one of these! In fact the last time I did, I
was simply your probationer while now I am your almost-minister or, to use a
word much in vogue at the moment, perhaps I might be your liminal minister. I
am looking forward to the 19th March when everything will become clearly
defined again.
Except of course, it won't. Alan Reid and I will begin a team ministry, which is a
relatively new experiment within the Church of Scotland. We as a church will
continue to navigate shifting cultural patterns within our society while exploring
the vast depths of the God we worship. Within our community there will be
people facing new challenges or difficult moments as well as the more joyful of
life's many transitions.
So in the middle of all this, when our passage from 2 Peter this week speaks of
the trustworthiness of the apostles’ witness to the life, death, and resurrection of
Jesus as well as the power of the Spirit to shape the legacy of Scripture, I can't
help but think of how we are being prepared to live in the changeable world. For
this passage speaks to the trust that we have in God to be active within the
community of faith.
For the first readers of 2 Peter were anxious about the delay to the second
coming of Jesus, which begs the question of how we're coping two-thousand
years later! Yet, like them, we are being reassured that the Holy Spirit is
constantly engaged in preparing humanity to welcome God in whatever century
and in whatever culture.
Looking ahead, Lent begins this week and therefore so do our whole-Parish Lent
studies which are being held in different venues throughout Lent. The first one
being in Kinross this Thursday at 7pm. The study will use Tearfund's ‘Church and
Community Mobilisation Study’ to help us explore how we can serve the
communities of Kinross-shire. Hope to see you there.
Every blessing
Alex
Alex Johnson