Tuesday 19 April 2016

Living The Vision

Recently I was thinking about the Church and how it has held me from my earliest days.  I suppose it began with a sense of belonging.   Sunday was the day I went to Church and there were people there who were kind and thoughtful.  And they seemed interested in me.  Always asking what I wanted to be when I grew up.  At that time my horizons were limited to becoming a legend with a sporting institution not far from where I lived but other ideas popped into my head from time to time.

 There were the usual misdemeanours with my pals in Sunday School.   One teacher told me years later that myself and my pal Eddie nearly drove him to distraction every week.  Little did he know that Eddie was destined to be his future son-in-law and that his partner in mischief would be at his side on his wedding day as his Best Man. 

There came a day, however, when a teacher at school who led the Scripture Union brought Jesus to life for me and stressed how important it was for everyone to ask Him into their lives.   That impressed me and in time made me think of the Church in a different way.  It was the place where we learned about Him and His teaching.   It was from that place we would go to tell His story, share His love, and bring about change in the world through lives that were changed.   The Church wasn’t a building or a club or an organisation.  It was a dynamic movement of people whose foundation was God’s Word, whose energy was the Holy Spirit, whose purpose was God’s great plan to renew the earth. 

That is the vision that has kept me going through the years.  I am sure the same vision was before those who formed Milngavie Parish Church when it was established 175 years ago.   So many things have happened since then on a global scale that have challenged faith, not to mention the personal heartaches that individuals have had to endure.   So many things have happened that have threatened the unity and peace of the Church.    But we are still here, living the vision, telling the story, sharing the love. 

The diary of a Free Church minister, Rev Murdoch Campbell, was published recently.  As he was nearing the end of his life in 1965 he wrote this:

'There are times when the Church of God looks as if it had perished, but how glorious and astonishing is God's power in giving her an instant resurrection and clothing her with power! In the very hour her enemies rejoice over her decay, powerlessness and death she springs to life, "terrible as an army with banners." (Song of Songs 6: 10)'.


175 years behind us, an unknown future before us, we stand on this faith.