Kiltarlity and Kirkhill Churches
Welcome
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Welcome to the website for Kiltarlity and Kirkhill Churches!The purpose of this website is threefold. Firstly, to keep you informed about the life and work of our churches. Secondly, to be a useful tool in sharing news and letting you know how our search for a new minister is going, and thirdly to be a source of further facts relating to the mission of the Church of Scotland and its related organisations.Locum Minister - The View from God's Little AcreDear Summer Blossoms, Frequently
after morning worship, one of you will say to me “Willis,
would you be willing to sing my favourite hymn sometime?" Of course, I
am happy to include the hymn on your "hit parade.” In fact,
for the Sundays of July and August, I am inviting you to submit your
favourite hymns and we will include them in our worship service. You
have to sing what I choose normally, but this will give you the
opportunity to choose the hymns which we sing. In each church, I will
put a box labelled FAVOURITE HYMNS. I invite you to put in those hymns
dear to your heart and precious in your memories. Your selection might
be a rip roaring chorus, a Moody Sankey song, a stately Metrical Psalm,
a classic traditional hymn of the church, a Wesley hymn, a new or
modern hymn that has attracted your fancy. We will sing your choices
beginning on Sunday, 12 July until the end of August. If you do not
have any choice of preferred hymns, paraphrases or psalms, then I will
choose them as usual. Singing is such an important part of our worship.
I hope you will want to indicate your preferences.
A second item I would like to mention this month was the encouraging response we had to a request for prayer for Peter Gloag in the light of his tragic accident in Nairobi, Kenya. Peter read the Easter Gospel for us on Easter Day at the Kiltarlity Church. He is usually in attendance at Kiltarlity during the summer services while in residence at Beaufort Castle. Peter was to undergo surgery on Wednesday 10 June. Ann Gloag communicated the request for prayer. Having no idea whether anyone would attend, I announced that those who were interested would gather at Kiltarlity Church on that Wednesday at 12 noon for a short service of Intercessory Prayer. As Pat and I drove over to Kiltarlity, I admit I wasn't sure whether anyone would come. Wow! Was I wrong! Fifteen gathered for prayer. We prayed for Elder Jimmy MacKenzie and James MacKenzie as well, who were in the hospital or ailing at the time. I acknowledge that I have never been asked to conduct such a service. I have been converted! If there is a crisis in your family, or with friends of yours, young or old, in the church or out of it, rich or poor, make the need known and we will invite people to make it an object of prayer. We should do this kind of thing much more often, as it expresses the depth of the fellowship and the binding nature of our relationship as members of the Body of Christ, the Church. Yes, you can teach an old dog new tricks, I wish that this kind of occasion had arisen before, so that together we could approach the Throne of Grace as St. Paul says "....but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus." (Philippians 4:6-7) Last, but not least, as Sunday School draws to a close before the holidays, permit me to express, on behalf of our grateful churches, our appreciation for the loyal and capable service rendered by those who teach and lead in the nurture of our "children of the covenant.” They provide an invaluable service to us. You are all cherished! Happy Holidays, Willis Pat's CornerDear Major Chords,I am so happy that Willis has invited us to make hymn requests for our summer worship services. The hymns we love not only reveal things about our personalities, and our faith journeys - they also shed light on our personal histories. Hymns we love may be the old classics, the gospel song, hymn tunes borrowed from musical productions, religious folk, pop or contemporary music, or Scripture inspired songs from the West End like Godspell, or Jesus Christ Superstar. All God's choristers have a place in that celestial choir. Some sing low, some sing high. It's not so important that we sing beautifully, but that we have a song to sing. As a young girl in the Methodist Church of Bald Knob, Arkansas, I fell in love with two brothers - John and Charles Wesley. My grandfather talked a lot about John Wesley from the pulpit and taught us many hymns by Charles Wesley. From then 'til now, I thrill to the lyrics of Charles Wesley especially in the hymn "And can it be ". My favourite verse (which I still remember) is "My chains fell off, my heart was free. I rose, went forth and followed Thee." Mum was at the organ. She needed no music lessons, for she played by ear. Her favourite hymn was "Blessed Assurance”. This hymn continues to bring great comfort to many in 2009. It was written by Fanny Crosby. Fanny was blind from infancy, but wrote more than 8,000 Gospel hymn texts. The music was written by her good friend Phoebe Knapp. Fanny Crosby is known to this day as the Queen of Gospel Music. My father died in 1947, and my mother went to work in Little Rock, Arkansas. She had to go back to work in order to support three children. A beautiful black "mammy" looked after us, and introduced me to the negro spirituals. She sang all day long and our mammy, Cookie Biggs, was such a comfort to us. Her favourite spiritual, and now mine, was "His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me." Cookie told us about Ethel Waters, a black Gospel singer who made the spiritual famous. Ethel was born into a life of severe poverty. She was the daughter of a mother who had given birth to 23 other children. Everyone overlooked Ethel until she sang this beautiful Gospel song. God had given her a voice that made her song and herself one of the best loved and best known of the negro spiritual singers in the world. In 1957, I met Willis Jones, and was introduced to a new kind of hymn writing - the Scottish Psalter. At least they were NEW to me. After we were engaged in 1964 and were talking about setting up house in a manse, I wanted him to sing something like "I can't give you anything but love, baby". But there were other dwellings on his mind. His favourite was, "How l, O Lord of Hosts to me. The tabernacles of thy grace, how pleasant Lord they be." (psalm 84) I knew that heaven was my home, but I wasn't homesick, yet. I stayed with it and came to love those Psalms like the one we used last Sunday, " O send thy light forth and thy truth, let them be guides to me." (Psalm 43) In the 1960's I learned that spiritual songs don't have to be in hymnbooks. Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice wrote JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR and brought it to Broadway and the West End. JOSEPH'S AMAZING TECHNICOLOUR DREAMCOAT was another one of our favourites. I remember sitting with Willis as we listened to Mary Magdalene's song from SUPERSTAR, and crying at the contemporary power and emotion and relevance those words had for us. Having recently graduated from Seminary, and a bit weary of only an intellectual approach to faith, this music was truly liberating. On my top ten spiritual pieces are things all the way from "Unto us a child is born" from Handel's MESSIAH to Garfunkel's soulful rendering of "Like a Bridge over Troubled Waters." I am so glad that God has put a song in our hearts and so many lyrics to go with the music. My all time favourite is, "Praise, my Soul, the King of Heaven", number 360 in CH3. The tune is beautiful and the lyrics so meaningful. We sang it with the congregation at our wedding and I'll make its words my recessional: Father like he tends and spares us, Well our
feeble frame he knows
In his arms he gently bears us Rescues us from all our foes Praise Him, Praise Him Widely as his mercy flows. May there always be a song in your hearts. Strictly Come Singing, Pat |
