No.3 24th November 2023
Hi,
Hope this finds you well, and looking forward to being at church again on Sunday... yes, being at church is really about the people and what we do when we are together - we've always known it wasn't about a building, and now we are able to 'know' it, not just in our heads, but in reality. And we get to celebrate Communion too this week.
The remarkable work of Denise, Lesley and the squad of helpers in getting hundreds and hundreds of boxes ready to make a difference to so many people's lives, has been completed for another year. Thank you to all involved.
As usual the magazine has lots of news... including Christmas events coming our way (get your diaries out) but other things happening too each week.
Enjoy the mag.
M
Sunday 26th November
Rev Scott Kirkland
Isaiah 52:13 - 53:12
Sacrament of Communion
Getting to Church:
Should anyone require a lift to Belmont House School, then please do let us know.
Please email office@nmnewchurch.org.
From the Minister
Dear Congregation,
We had our first Kirk Session on Thursday night. We are delighted that Alastair McLellan accepted the invitation of the elders to become Session Clerk of Newton Mearns New Church.
He is joined now by former elders from Maxwell: myself as Moderator, Charles Amery-Behr, David Merriman, Jack Geddes, John McNicol, Graeme Lipsett, Murray McNicol and Sandy McDougall. You will find an interesting article about why we have multiple elders here.
We are indebted to all who served previously on the Session of MMCC. We are especially grateful to Andrew Little who served as Session Clerk at MMCC. I regretted that due to the hasty way we left MMCC, we never really got to express our congregational gratitude him. Many thanks Andrew. Alastair has big shoes to fill!
Our Kirk Session meeting was attended also by some of our former elders at Maxwell; Margo, Muriel, Wanda (and Lorna who had been valued part of our steering group). As Moderator, it will be my aim in the days to come, to invite “contributors” to our Kirk Session meetings so that we might be blessed by the gifts of others in our decision making process.
First Congregational Roll: The elders were greatly encouraged to have over one hundred of our worshippers seek formal membership of NMNC. Those who were previously members of Maxwell were brought onto the new roll. For the few who were not previously on the roll, but members of other congregations, the elders will look forward to hearing of God’s grace in their lives prior to their formal admission.
On a different but related matter….
I have been so grateful to God for the commitment of so many of you. I have found this so encouraging. This commitment is evident at the organisational level but also in the immediate uptake of ministry to our NMNC Hizkidz, PrimeTime and Youth groups on Sunday mornings and evenings!
I also want to especially thank Sue Amery Behr, Lorna Hamilton and Ian Forgie for volunteering to remain amongst the affairs of MMCC helping hand over congregational life in good order! They did not need to do that. I am hugely encouraged because I see in this their commitment to the Lord, Newton Mearns New Church and MMCC!
Let’s all enquire of the Lord how we might serve Him in this new season. And as we serve him in our weekly activities and work or on Sundays, let us do so in a Christ-like way for His honour. The wonderful joy is that all who profess faith the name of Jesus Christ are part of the Body of Christ and can serve! The only question is where and how!
With warmest regards,
Scott
English Standard Version
Moving From The Congregation Using the NIV to the ESV Bible
I am aware that you bring a variety of bibles to church these days. Most are NIV and ESV translations. Since we no longer possess church bibles for the chairs the Kirk Session has agreed we use the words of the ESV (English Standard Version) on the screen in worship. I will now read and preach from the ESV translation. The NIV has served us well and was not a bad translation. However, the ESV will we believe serve us well in the days ahead.
If you want a good technical reason why the ESV compares favourably with the NIV, read here.
Scott
The ESV is available for free as a Bible App for Iphone and Android - search on your app store.
If you haven't been to the Prayer meeting before you are welcome to come along.
This week we meet at Sandy and Debbie MacDougall's.
The meeting is open to all who are associating themselves with Newton Mearns New Church.
PLEASE GET IN TOUCH IF YOU REQUIRE A LIFT - email office@nmnewchurch.org.
God's Plumbline
David Merriman gave the Maxwell Message on Tuesday's Coffee Club and we asked if he would be able to share it in this week's Magazine...
Amos 7:7-8: This is what he showed me: behold, the Lord was standing beside a wall built with a plumb line, with a plumb line in his hand. 8 And the Lord said to me, “Amos, what do you see?” And I said, “A plumb line.” Then the Lord said,
“Behold, I am setting a plumb line in the midst of my people Israel; I will never again pass by them;
As you approach the 18th green at my golf club, you see the gable end of a block of flats just beyond the golf club’s property.
And in line with that gable end, within the golf club, there is a flag pole which the club uses when certain important events take place – like me winning the medal for example!
But recently, I have noticed that the flag pole is beginning to lean over relative to the gable end – the flag pole is out of plumb. And that’s what I want to talk about this afternoon. There’s a story in the Bible about a plumbline, just two verses in the book of Amos.
In this vision, the prophet Amos sees the Lord standing beside a wall – with a plumbline in His hand.
The plumbline, with a plumb bob on the end of it, is used to determine the vertical perfection of a wall.
Since the pull of gravity will stretch the string straight down it is considered to be a perfect vertical standard, a test of what is true, or plumb.
I was a civil engineer in my working life and, in 1976, as a young graduate, I worked on site building a section the M8 motorway at Easterhouse. In those days you still used a theodolite to set out the line of the new motorway and a plumbline was used to set up the instrument accurately before you started. If you didn’t set up the theodolite using the plumbline, then the motorway would end up in the wrong place. Now, we had a chap in our office called Jim who took to do with the ordering of equipment but whom we soon discovered was an easy target for practical jokes. So when the plumblines for the theodolites arrived, one of my colleagues told Jim that the plumblines would have to be returned because they weren’t hanging vertically! So Jim sent them back! Poor Jim.
In the Bible, Israel had been formed by God’s plumbline – The Law of Moses – the principles by which He had sought to build the nation.
Now, with the plumbline in His hand, God is going to show how far out of line the nation of Israel had become, how far it is from being upright, and how completely crooked and unbalanced they had become.
With Amos 7:7-8 in mind, let’s look at some ways in which God is “The God of the Plumbline”
EVERY WALL IS TO BE BUILT BY GOD’S PLUMBLINE
In every decision and action we take in our lives, we are continually building a wall – a wall of character.
Whether consciously, or not, we are building our wall of character by some kind of standard.
So what are those standards by which many build their wall of character?
Well, there’s the rule of pleasure – their character is defined by what pleases them personally.
Or there’s the rule of popular opinion. Noah is a good example of someone not following popular opinion. You will remember the story of Noah. When everyone else was disobeying God, Noah remained faithful to God and so God told him to build an ark to save him and his family from the flood which God was going to send on the earth.
The only straight and true wall of character occurs when we use God’s rule, God’s standard.
God’s plumbline, is God’s Word – His Bible.
All our thoughts and actions must be measured by God’s word. Not man’s opinions, not man’s wants but by God’s plumbline.
What would you think of a bricklayer building a wall and seeing that the wall does not line up with the plumbline and then just shrugs it off?
The same casual attitude is often taken towards the Bible.
THE PLUMBLINE EMPHASIZES THAT GOD JUDGES EVERYTHING BY AN EXACT STANDARD
The plumbline is used in the Bible as an illustration of judgment.
The plumbline always hangs straight, and the Bible tells us we are going to be judged by the plumbline.
When a bricklayer finds his wall out of plumb, he does not discard the plumbline - he adjusts the wall!
So, we should not discard God’s standard, but align ourselves to it and change our behaviour.
IN BUILDING A WALL IT IS FAR BETTER TO TEST EACH COURSE BY THE PLUMBLINE AS WE BUILD
It would be foolish for a bricklayer to wait until he finishes the wall to check to see if it is plumb.
It is just as foolish for us to build our wall of character and never check God’s plumbline along the way.
We are to examine ourselves.
Are you out of plumb?
In our lives, God is “The God of the Plumbline.” And Jesus was the perfect God-man who came down from Heaven to set the standard – his holiness is our standard.
Blythswood Boxes
We have now finished checking Blythswood boxes for this year.
Numbers are down on previous years because there were fewer boxes to check and another sort centre in the central belt has been helping out.
We are so thankful for all the support from so many folk.
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For those who kept us in their prayers.
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For those who donated baking to keep us sustained - Priscilla, Sandy H. Pamela,.
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For those who brought us fillers and for those who donated money that allowed us to purchase items for the shoeboxes.
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For those who spent time in the garage checking and sorting the boxes -
We couldn't have managed without you.
The final total was 4640 which was still 335 more than the same time last year.
Looking forward to seeing you all for fellowship and fun next year.
Denise and Lesley
The Beauty of Gender Difference
Last week, the Church of England voted in favour of a trial of special services asking God’s blessing on same-sex couples. This alongside recent decisions by the Church of Scotland and the Scottish Episcopal church is a move away from orthodox Christian belief and the teaching of the Bible both on what marriage is, and at its heart, the difference God makes between Men and Women.
Tim Challies wrote this small reflection to this big issue....
Sometimes we are forced to have conversations that are almost too strange to believe—conversations, for example, in which we insist that there is such a thing as a gender binary. Yet today so many people are convinced that gender is a mere construct of an oppressive culture. Gender, they believe, is a decision we make for ourselves and not one grounded in any biological reality (not to mention any divine design). In his book Does God Care About Gender Identity?, Samuel Ferguson expresses the importance of teaching and displaying the beauty and goodness of gendered bodies. I was particularly struck by one simple application—singing in the local church. When we sing as men and women, there is a special way in which we display God’s design. I’ll allow him to explain.
The beauty of gender difference adorns God’s world. We need to help the next generation see and honor it. As a pastor, I have the joy of seeing couples meet, marry, and have children. The fruit of their union reminds us that only a biological male and biological female can produce life. “People often present the sex binary as oppressive,” writes Rebecca McLaughlin. “But at its very heart, the male-female binary is creative.” In appropriate ways, parents must teach and remind their children that the complementarity of the two-gendered world—the dance of male and female—is the creative source that stands behind each one of us. By God’s design, every human being owes his or her existence to one man and one woman.
Another place the beauty of gender shows up is in church worship. In my church, when songs have parts for men and women, the guys can’t help but sing a little louder when it’s their turn. They send a low rumble through the pews. When the women have their go, it’s as if a bright and gentle joy enfolds the congregation. When all the voices finally sing together, one hears, even feels, the truth and goodness of our gendered world. Surely this will be an enduring display of our maleness and femaleness as we worship the Lamb in heaven (Rev. 5:9; 14:3; 15:3).
Christians must point out this beauty to the next generation whenever we experience it. We must celebrate the goodness of God’s design, that we are our bodies, that our gendered bodies are temples for the Holy Spirit, made to glorify God (1 Cor. 6:19–20), and that this is anything but restrictive—it’s beautiful.
Dear Congregation,
Glasgow City Mission has a urgent job opening for the winter months (Overnight Welcome Centre).
The job starts on 1st December until 31st March, it is five nights on, five nights off - 8:30pm-6:00am
based at the city-centre building on 20 Crimea Street, G2 8PW.
It is a short-term Christian job working with those in danger of sleeping rough this winter over the next four months?
Interested?
Know anyone who might be?
Contact Jack Geddes jack@glasgowcitymission.com or 07714 983075.
GCM PRAYER EVENT
We aim to live stream our services on YouTube from our first Sunday. You can find the service here.
You can also find the service by searching on YouTube for Newton Mearns New Church.
Volunteering
There are a number of activities each week involved in getting set up for each service...putting up this banner for instance!
We want the whole body of Christ to become involved in our new congregational life.
Should you wish to volunteer in any way, from the beginning, please do let us know.
Please do consider volunteering if only for Sunday set up and take down.
We shall work out rosters over the coming weeks.
Giving at NM New Church
We now have our bank account, and details on how you may care to give will be distributed at worship on Sunday.
We will prefer not to have cash offerings in a plate at this time.
Speak to Sandy McDougall for more details or click on this Giving page.
Save the Date
Saturday 16th December at 10am live on YouTube,
Enjoy this online Christmas concert watching from the comfort of your own home as you are having your morning coffee or
breakfast.
I will be accompanied by a couple I met at the ante-natal classes who were having a baby at the same time.
They happened to be a concert pianist and a composer!
It will be some traditional songs, some modern songs and an original or two.
It will be live on my YouTube channel which you can find here.
Christy Campbell.
There is a Pray Now group for NM New Church members.
HAVE YOU JOINED YET?
This is set up with the focus very much on church family prayer requests, which are of some urgency.
Because it is often personal information that people are asking prayer for, the group can be accessed by request. Get in touch with Margaret Boyd if you want to be on this WhatsApp group or drop her a line at mandmboyd@hotmail.co.uk.
Ladybird Book of NM New Church
Our friends at the Baptist Church are getting an early start to help us focus on the message of Christmas....
We are hosting Riding Lights Theatre group here at Mearns Baptist for a family nativity play and wanted to extend an invite to any of your congregants who would like to attend. It’s on the 1st of December and so hopefully won’t clash with any of your own Advent
