No.25 3rd May, 2024
Hi,
Hope this finds you well.
At Wednesday's prayer meeting Tom led us through some thoughts from
Psalm 139. God is a sovereign Creator and knows us, inside out. That can bring great comfort, and can also make us feel our unworthiness the more we come to understand just how 'other' God is to us, in his power and holiness. Do we run and hide at this point?... Remarkably, Jesus bids us come! I enjoyed listening to this song on the cycle to work this morning - helpful words from Stuart Townend:
Loved before the dawn of time
Chosen by my maker, hidden in my Saviour
I am His and He is mine
Cherished for eternity
When I'm stained with guilt and sin
He is there to lift me, heal me and forgive me
Gives me strength to stand again
Stronger than I was before
So with every breath that I am given
I will sing salvation's song
And I'll join the chorus of creation
Giving praise to Christ alone
You can watch and listen to
Salvation's Song here.
Lots in the magazine this week, including Free books and Free Courses...there are a number of key dates for the church this month as Scott reminds us -
But can I direct you in particular to an exciting and important Church event coming soon - read about 'Starter for Ten' below.
Enjoy the mag.
M
Sunday 5th May 10.30am
Rev Scott Kirkland
Reading - Romans ch8:1-13
LARGE PRINT
If you would prefer to have a large print copy of the song words which appear on the screen on a Sunday morning let the door team know.
We don't want to print copies which aren't used so just the team know and we can organise that for you.
If you require a lift to get to church email office@nmnewchurch.org
Letter from the Manse
Dear Congregation,
As we approach 26th May and our welcome into the Free Church, I thought it might be helpful to share a few comments.
The Claim, Declaration and Protest…
The Free Church was founded as a denomination in 1843. At the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, 127 ministers and over 70 elders walked out of the Church of Scotland Assembly. The walked down the hill to Tanfield Hall in Canonmills, Edinburgh and established The Free Church of Scotland. Later that week, over 450 ministers became Free Church ministers and about one third of congregations also broke away from the National Church. It was a “Disruption” of church and national life! New church buildings changed the skyline of virtually every village, town, and city in Scotland.
It may surprise us that although the founders were chiefly evangelical, the dominant issue was interference of the State into the affairs of the Church. Locally, wealthy landowners would also use their power to appoint ministers. The Free Church website puts the matter this way:
“Under a system known as Patronage, landowners could nominate ministers of their choosing to congregations, regardless of whether the congregation wanted them or not. This was considered by many, particularly evangelicals, as being totally unacceptable.”
The formation of the Free Church is clearly articulated in “The Claim, Declaration and Protest” of 1842 and “The Protest” of 1843. Click on them to read these substantial documents. (You will hear this expression used in the ordination vows our elders take.)
However, only a short time later, in 1900, The Free Church of Scotland joined with The United Presbyterian Church of Scotland to form “The United Free Church of Scotland”. A minority of The Free Church remained outside this new union. The Free Church plummeted in numbers from about 300,000 members to 4,000, with only twenty-five ministers and about sixty congregations. Because the new “United Free Church” was now much larger than the remaining Free Church members, those who remained Free Church became known colloquially as “The Wee Free”. Interestingly, the majority of The United Free Church then returned to The Church of Scotland in 1929!
Psalms, Hymns And Spiritual Songs…
For many years the Free Church only sang Psalms and without musical accompaniment.
A number of ministers and members still hold as a matter of biblical conscience that Psalms should be the only praise sung in worship. Let me point to just a couple of threads in this thinking;
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Only the singing of Psalms adheres to the “Regulative Principle” for worship – i.e. we only have elements that are specifically commanded by Scripture.
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Praise with musical instruments was given to the Levites to perform in the Old Testament temple worship. This ceremonial worship is now fulfilled in Christ. We have no temple, no Levites and therefore should have no musical instruments.
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Psalms are the only inspired songs from God.
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New Testament passages like Colossians 3.16 /Ephesians 5.19 speak of Psalmois (Psalms), Humnois (Hymns), Odais (Songs) but these three expressions are used in the titles of the Greek translation of the Psalms and are therefore simply types of Psalms.
Needless to say, I do not share these conclusions (you can find some reasons why not, here) .
In 2010, the Free Church passed an Act to permit the singing in worship of “uninspired” praise (and with musical accompaniment). However, out of respect for those within the Free Church who continue to hold a biblical conscience on this matter, it was agree that;
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Gatherings Presbytery and General Assembly (which may have attending those with a conscience on this matter) should use praise only from the Psalms and without musical accompaniment
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Each service of congregational worship should include Psalms.
There are two implications for us at NMNC.
When we become Mearns Free Church, we shall respect this condition and include at least one Psalm in our praise each Sunday. We have already begun to do this and many of you have expressed your appreciation.
However, a second implication is that because we asked Glasgow and Argyll Presbytery to welcome us into the Presbytery as part of our regular Sunday worship, the praise on that Sunday will be selected only from the Psalms and with no musical accompaniment. Our normal Sunday worship pattern will then resume thereafter.
Hope you find the above of some help,
With warm regards,
Scott
Join us for...
Sunday 2nd June, 4.30 - 7pm
Join us for a time of fellowship for the newly named Mearns Free Church!
Bring your ideas and input to help shape our future.
Together, we'll think about how to be a healthy Gospel church in the community of Newton Mearns. Let's gather to brainstorm. Whether you're a long-time member or new to our community, your voice matters.
The stations we plan on having will be,
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Training & Leadership
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Mission & social action
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Pastoral & relationships
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Praise & Worship
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Outreach & Discipleship
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Prayer
Sunday 2nd June at Belmont
16:30 – Kick off with a talk from our guest speaker and some praise.
17:00 – Dive into themed discussion stations and share your thoughts on how we can thrive and spread the Gospel.
18:00 – Enjoy a buffet tea
18:45 – Final reflections from Scott
19:00 - That's a wrap!
For more details, contact Jacob.
Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.
1 Thess 5:11
British Heart Foundation
Free CPR Training On-Line
Several years ago I read a book by the footballer Fabrice Muamba. He "died" on the football field after suffering a cardiac arrest.
Through the quick action of a doctor, CPR was administered. Though his heart stopped beating for 78 minutes, through constant CPR, he was brought back to full health.
Fabrice, with two other footballers, Tom Lockyer and Charlie Wyke, who also had cardiac arrests when playing football, were on Breakfast TV this week. They were advertising The British Heart Foundation initiative to train 270,000 people in CPR.
The British Heart Foundation is offering a free online course (takes 15 minutes).
I undertook the "training" and though I have done something similar several times previously, I was grateful for the refresher.
In God's providence, we never know when we might be called upon to help someone this way.
It would be great to be prepared! Worth 15 minutes of your time?
Scott
Home Groups
We are starting a short season of Home Groups before the Summer - good opportunity to dip your toe in the water and find out how helpful these groups can be - great to get to know others better, and a good time to delve into the Bible and find out that everyone is asking pretty much the same questions as you are! Speak to Scott or Alister, Debbie or Margo to get plugged into a group for May and June.
We are looking at some Psalms this time... but having just come out of the studies in James let's have a look back at a verse from the final chapter, with a comment from Sam Alberry.
"The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. Elijah was a man just like us."
One of the most successful advertising campaigns of recent years came from a regional airline in the US during the run-up to Christmas.
They set up a “virtual Santa” in the departure lounge of a domestic flight. Passengers would scan their boarding pass, activating a screen featuring Santa (located somewhere else and with access to their flight details), who would then ask them what they wanted for Christmas before sending them on their way. Unbeknownst to the passengers, employees from the airline then went out to local malls to purchase and wrap the very things the passengers had asked for—everything from new socks to a widescreen TV. When the passengers arrived at their destination, their gifts arrived along with their luggage at the baggage belt. Many stood in disbelief when they realised what had happened. Needless to say, the video recording their reactions went viral, providing the airline with way more publicity and goodwill than a standard commercial would have generated. But after the warm glow from watching it subsided, I had one thought in my mind: The guy who only asked for socks must be kicking himself. Once he’d realised what had happened, surrounded by people with expensive cameras and tablets, he must have felt a little foolish clutching a pair of socks. If only he had known. If only he had asked. James does not want us to make the same mistake.
The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. It is real. Things actually happen. God answers. How foolish we are not to pray far more than we do. How foolish, at the end of the day, aware of all that we could have had, to be left clutching the equivalent of a pair of socks that we never even realised we would get. Not every Christian can be a great theologian, preacher, missionary or evangelist. But every Christian can be a great and effective pray-er.
Sam Alberry
Holiday Club Summer 2024
4th - 11th August 2024
Save the date. Sunday 4th - Sunday 11th August will be a week of activities based on an Olympics theme.
We will have a holiday club for primary school children as well as family activites, youth events and adult events.
The week is in the early planning stages so if you have any ideas please speak to myself or Jacob and look our for further information over the coming weeks.
Pauline
Is your smartphone making you foolish?
You're not alone
This FREE E-BOOK by Brett McCracken looks like it will speak right into the day to day activities of many of us...
Here is what Brett (Senior Editor, The Gospel Coalition) wrote this week...
Do you feel yourself becoming more foolish the more time you spend scrolling on social media? Do you get the sense that “smartphones are actually making us dumb? You’re not alone. Addictive algorithms make huge money for Silicon Valley, but they make huge fools of us.
It doesn’t have to be this way. With intentionality and the discipline to cultivate healthier media consumption habits, we can resist the foolishness of the age and instead become wise and spiritually mature.
In my book The Wisdom Pyramid: Feeding Your Soul in a Post-Truth World (Crossway, 2021), I offer a rubric (inspired by the food pyramid) for what it might look like to build a “diet” of intakes conducive to spiritual health and wisdom rather than spiritual sickness and foolishness.
The Gospel Coalition is thrilled to be offering this book to you for FREE as an ebook today.
Click here to get instant access to this timely tool for growing in wisdom in our post-truth digital age.
I pray this book helps point you to nourishing truth in an age of digital junk food!
Ladybird Book of New Church
We have been encouraged to read this book AND think of who we would give a copy to.
There is a 2 for 1 offer for £8
Ask Stewart Anderson if you would like a copy.
Beauty. Justice. Identity. Love. Stories. Nature. Hope. These things intrigue us, move us and prompt us to ask big questions. Could there be clues in our deepest desires that point to life’s meaning?
Have You Ever Wondered? invites you on an immersive tour through the issues that matter. This book is for anyone who has looked at a landscape and contemplated why we are drawn to beauty; or wondered why we are so insatiably curious about our universe, or even for those who have simply looked up at a million stars in the vast night’s sky and just wondered.
More details in Magazine 23.
We gather round the Word in our meetings on Sunday and other times, and we hold to it as the revealed Word of God for us today.
This is the last part of the serialisation of Andrew Wilson's excellent little book, 'Unbreakable - what the Son of God thought of the Word of God'
THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE
In this short book we have serialised, there’s obviously a huge amount of material we haven’t covered. In particular, we haven’t really looked at how we interpret Scripture, except to say that we interpret it in light of Jesus.
Many people today, for example, cannot understand why Christians obey some instructions in the Bible but not others: why we seek to love God, love our neighbours, preach the gospel, only have sex within marriage and gather in local churches, while not feeling the need to abstain from shellfish, circumcise boys, stone adulterers, wear head coverings in church (if we’re women), kiss each other (if we’re men), rip our eyes out if we sin, avoid black pudding, and take trips to Troas to find Paul’s coat.
So here are five interpretive principles which will hopefully help you navigate some of these questions:
When interpreted correctly, with careful attention paid to context, purpose, genre and authorial intention, the Scriptures do not contain mistakes. (We’ve talked about this in the book already.)
The primary way of establishing the meaning of a text is to establish what the original author meant their original audience to understand. (This is the golden rule of interpretation, in my view, and it helps us avoid all sorts of weird and wonderful interpretations. Nobody listening to Jesus thought we were literally supposed to rip our eyes out, for example.
The Bible is a big story, and the big story is authoritative for all Christians, although instructions given in one part of the story are not necessarily binding on those who live in other parts of the story. (The law of Moses, for example, was given to ancient Israel, who lived before the coming of Jesus – the ‘destination of the law’. That means that the instructions we find there are fulfilled and summed up in the commands to love God and love our neighbour, rather than needing to be followed to the letter by all subsequent Christians. The early church were careful to explain, for instance, that all foods were clean, that Gentiles didn’t have to circumcise their baby boys, and so on, because the law had been fulfilled in Jesus.)
We live in the same part of the story as the New Testament church, and therefore we should obey all instructions given to believers in the New Testament, unless there are clear indications that they only apply to specific individuals. (Occasionally, there are. Only Timothy was supposed to go to Troas to find Paul’s coat; only the Romans were supposed to greet the household of Aristobulus; only those with an emperor are supposed to honour the emperor; and so on.)
Obeying New Testament instructions will sometimes require cultural translation, where the meaning of symbols has changed across the centuries, in order to preserve the meaning of the original symbols. (Men kissing men, for example, is a physical symbol that means something different in the UK to what it meant in the Mediterranean in the first century. The same is true of head coverings for men and women, footwashing, and a handful of other things. To obey these instructions requires ‘translating’ the symbols, if you like.)
These five principles won’t resolve every question, sadly – people will still disagree about what the original author meant (principle 2) and what ‘clear indications’ are (principle 4) – but they’ll resolve an awful lot of them. Plus, they’ll give you a decent response to the ‘Why do Christians fight slavery but not stone people?’ type of questions.
B.Y.O.C. please
CAN YOU HELP?
it makes such a difference if people bring their own cups rather than using the disposable ones each week - can you help?
The Scottish Reformed Conference
Saturday the 11th of May.
This is a great place for Christians to gather and to enjoy fellowship with other like minded people and lifts the spirits of believers by bearing witness to them that they are not alone in their faith.
Hamilton College School, Bothwell Road, Hamilton.
Costs are: Adults £5 - Students £4, 17 and under £Free.
Registration opens at 9.15am.
Opening session begins 10am & closing session ends at 3.30pm.
Tea and coffee is served on arrival in the morning and at break time and lunch time. There is no cost for this. Bring your own packed lunches.
There is also a very fine book stall supplied by the Banner of Truth.
Speakers this year are Rupert Bentley-Taylor from Bath
Dr Iain Wright, a Scot, from the USA.
Fuller details can be found at - www.scottishreformedconference.org
You can watch a live stream our services on YouTube each week.
You can find the service
here and don't forget to click SUBSCRIBE
If you have friends/relatives who can't manage out they can simply search on YouTube for Newton Mearns New Church.
Wednesdays 7.15-8.15pm.
Look out for details this week on email/whatsapp
If you need a lift please email office@nmnewchurch.org.
Would you like to deepen your relationship with your persecuted family and be strengthened in your faith?
Sat, 11 May 2024 09:30 - 15:00
Findlay Church, Glasgow
Details about this conference can be found
here.
Safeguarding at Newton Mearns New Church
Safeguarding – Ensuring a Safe Church for All
If you suspect or witness harm or abuse, or it is reported to you, you must immediately report it to one of the Safeguarding Coordinators:
Sue Anderson – 07970 261429
Giving at NM New Church
There are a number of ways to support the church financially. The giving page gives details - click here
A number of people have been asking if cash or cheques can now be given. From this Sunday you will have the opportunity to leave offerings in the plate or basket on the table at the back of the church.
If you have any questions please speak to our Treasurer Sandy or email him on finance@nmnewchurch.org
The New Church has a What's App Group for Prayer
See magazine no.4 for an outline of how this Pray Now group operates.
Speak to Margaret Boyd if you would like to be added to this group or email your details to mandmboyd@hotmail.co.uk
You need WhatsApp on your phone to get set up