It was a great honour to have the company of our Patron The Princess Royal and also to have been given the use of the Palace by Her Majesty the Queen for this event. We had people from every walk of life with us including Oscar Schiappa Pietra who currently advises the Minister and the Secretary of National Planning in Papua New Guinea as a UNDP Officer. Oscar in the past has been a Senior Advisor to the Minister of Foreign Affairs; and Executive Director of the Peruvian Agency for International Aid, in Peru. He has also been a great friend and advisor to the Trust. It was also great to see some of the first members of the Trust attend the dinner and to remind ourselves of our early challenges and difficulties.
However it is because of people who were prepared to carry on in the face of difficuties that we have the Trust as it is today. We all had a wonderful time. I was especially pleased that Princess Anne highlighted the work that the Trust is now developing in partnership with schools in the UK and also paid tribute to the way we work trying to be innovative and inclusive networking accross the whole strata of society.

I can hardly believe that 25 years have past since we first opened the Branches shop here in Bo’ness. Today much of our success has been brought about by the grace of God working in the hearts and minds of people of faith and even no faith. I particularly want to say a huge thank you to Willie McPherson our Executive Director and his small but dynamic staff who have worked so hard to make the Trust an effective partner as we work alongside Scripture Union in Peru bringing Health care to over 100,000 people in the Amazon through our Medical Programme and supporting over 200 children in the five homes we have built and continue to fund. All this is a far cry away from our first falteriing steps as we opened a shop in the Market Square in Bo’ness. Its a great privelege to be Chairman of the Vine Board and to have such a creative group of people on our team.

Mary tells me she has attended St Andrew’s for most of her life. She has been a Sunday School Teacher and a member of the Choir. She misses many of her friends who ae no longer with us, however she always has a genuine interest in the work of teh church and is someone who realises that changes have had to take place. While she may not like all of the changes. She believes that some were essential.

Her father was invited to be an elder, but because he didn’t have a morning suit. He turned the offer down. All this got me thinking. Many people complain that the church is not what it once was. In some respects I’m glad. When I think of a church that excluded people from the eldership because of their clothes, I think of a church that had missed the point of the gospel. Lest we as church leaders a hundred years on get on our high horse, perhaps we need to think of the attitudes we have that are preventing and creating barriers to faith in Christ. It might be of interest I just heard the other day of someone who went into a church only to over hear someone comment on their clothes. Nothing changes! Even James in his epistle wrote about attitudes to clothes and riches.

Anyway its happy birthaday to Mary

When that happens I’m often reminded of an old prayer in the 1662 Book of Common Order. Its called a prayer of general Confession, in it we say ” We have left undone those things which we ought to have done, and we have done those things which we ought not to have done and there is no health in us” I like the phrase “there is no health in us” quite often that is just how we feel. We literally feel sick with the way things have turned out. I realise now that telling God how I feel is an important step to recovery and better spiritual health. Too often we carry the burdens of our parishes and friends when we should be giving them into the hands of Almighty God. Too often we ministers and elders carry too much of the burden. It is Christ who changes a situation not you or me. We may be our brother’s keeper but we are not our brother’s Saviour. We too are sinners in need of a Saviour.

The thing is the next part of the prayer is all about bringing a sense of reality and grace into the situation. ” But thou, O Lord have mercy upon us miserable offenders: spare thou them who confess their faults. Restore thou them that are penitent. The wonderful thing is that God knows our hearts. When we serve we are not serving for the praise of our fellow human beings we are serving in order to bring glory to God. I’ve come to the conclusion that God is much more merciful than some of our fellow Christian brothers and sisters and even more merciful thatn we are ourselves.

Of course there is another part of the prayer of Confession that we often forget to hear. When we pray we need to remind ourselves that God is willing to answer and respond to our prayers. The Absolution as it is called is said so that we can be reassured of our forgiveness. The Absolution contains these words, “He pardoneth and absolveth all them that truly repent and unfeignedly believe his Holy Gospel. Wherefore let us beseech him to grant us true repentanceand his Holy Spirit, that those things may please him which we do at this present. ”

Here in this prayer we are reminded that it is out of God’s grace that we are even able to repent. Repentance is not something that comes to us naturally, it is the work of God’s Holy Spirit at work in our hearts. Amazing isn’t it what we can learn from these old prayers.

Don’t give up – there is always a way to fix things. If your in a bad place at the moment watch this little video clip it brought a tear to my eye.

All of us at sometime in life get stuck in reverse. Instead of going forward everthing seems to be going backwards. We have all made decisions and said things that we wish we could change. Getting unstuck is what living is all about. I’ve come to the conclusion that by nature we are all sticky people.

The meaning of life for me is the unsticking of self so that we can be free. Yet I’ve also discovered that understanding requires us to live with paradoxs. To enjoy freedom I need to love. To love I need to live in communion with another or be in community with others. To make community or communion work I need to be free to give up my freedom for the sake of love and in doing so I am proving my freedom. The greatest encounter wth freedom is to wear bonds of love.

Jesus of Nazareth used stories to illustrate ways to move our lives forward. The story of the Lost Son never ceases to touch me in quite a profound way. I think it is the visual imagery that reaches beyond words.

As I continued to walk I came across this old tree standing tall stretching up into the blue sky. There was nothing temporary about this tree. It has its roots firmly planted in the soil. It might look a bit ugly but its solid. Its dependable, and its enduring. It carries and displays the scars of time on its bark, but it wears its bark proudly. Got me thinking, I know a few wonderful people who are a bit like this tree. They inspire me not because they look great but because they are great. Great because they have handled all that life can throw at them and their still standing.

On other thought came into my mind this tree looks like as strong and as permenant at the church tower.

Oh God

Help me to stand tall

Thank you for the strong people

Who have helped me in my life

The people who have made me look tall

The people who have held me up by their prayers

The people I lean upon

Lord I do believe in the Moses effect

Arms lifted in prayer

The giants whose shoulders I have stood upon

Thank you for the view they have given me

Even if I never journey any further

The view is all I need

A couple of Sundays ago i was preaching on the text from Psalm 46. ” There is a river that makes glad the city of God. What a wonderful thought. I wonder what the city of God “being glad” sounds like ? Its a wonderful image.

There is a River

I think this river is

Laughing with me

It too has a place in the city

God has given rivers a future

Now i know why it’s  singing in tune with the stones and the fish

Its presence lifts your spirit

It really knows how to move

It never stays still

A river is always going somewhere

Flowing

Faster

Slower

Deeper

Broader

I want to move with the river

I want to to race the river

I want to swim in the water

I want to catch a fish in the river

I want to flow like the river

Lord let the river of life flow through me

Today

Yesterday

And forever

This particular fox has been known to a few generations of St Andrew’s BBs. It looks like another generation are going to get the opportunity of getting to know this legendary figure. So tell me what is the fox grinning about? Any ideas? Some have said they’ve seen him more silvery than he is now, others say that his time in quarantine forced him to try camouflage to hide his silver streaks.

I couldn’t stay for the whole evening, I just popped in to see how things were going now that David Andrew and Marie are no longer officers. I was encouraged to see a fair number of the boys turn up and also to take note that Roy,Neil and David seemed on top of things. maybe that’s the reason why the silver fox was smiling?

So if you think you can be of service to the BB Company this session please get in touch.

Its amazing what you see on the road when your out and about around Bo’ness. I’m staggered at the weight of things that get transported on our roads.  Here’s a steam engine being pulled by a lorry. The lorry is having a rest in a lay-by outside Bo’ness.

Got me thinking about the shear weight of troubles and worries that we all transport around in our lives. We literally carry rubbish in our heads and feelings in our hearts  that should have been dumped years ago.  

I’m just thinking I  had a boot load of rubbish rattling around in  the car for a day before I took it to the skip. It was most annoying rattling about in the boot , especially when I was turning corners.

Its the same with our emotional and psychological  rubbish, it always reminds us of its existence, especially when we’re trying to change the direction of our lives. The answer is simply take it to the skip and have a clear out. Yes dump the lot. You’ll feel a lot better. Why pull a steam train on a road when it was meant to go on rails. We do carry strange things around with us.  I like what Jesus said about troubles and worries. I’ve paraphrased it below.

BOGLE’S PARAPHRASE

Drop into my lay-by if your carrying a huge heavy weight, even if its the size of a steam train, I’ll deal with it. I’ll give you rest from that burden. I’ll send you on your way feeling different about everything. I’ll put you on the right track . Before long  the burden will be carrying you. Is that not what steam trains are made to do?  Matt 11. 28-30

Today’s guest is Stuart Murdoch the Baptist minister in the town. I think we’ll have a bit of banter. It will be a great show. I hope that Lilias will also be able to join me as part of the production team. Lilias is really chatty and good at answering the emails that come in from time to time while your on the air.

I’ve got a kind of theme in my head for tomorrow. We’re all in search of this theme but too often we don’t quite find it. And when we do it seems to just disappear. Anyway I thought I’d play a track from Blue Nile.Here is

Paul Buchanan singing

Click here to view the embedded video.