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FORUM FOCUS

The magazine of

Leith Churches Forum

September 2012

Vol. 43/12

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Farewell John Tait, Minister of Pilrig St Paul’s Church My retiral at the end of October will start the last phase of the round of cur-rent changes of Ministers within Leith Churches Forum! I came to Leith as Minister of Leith St Paul’s Church in Lorne Street in July 1985, sharing in what was a time of buoyant growth within the community. Many new houses were built - indeed for a time it seemed that every small corner plot was being used to squeeze in more flats! New developments were established –Waterworld and a superstore on the site of the old railway station- the Pilmeny Youth Centre, the Community Treat-ment Centre in Junction Place and the Ocean Termi-nal and the coming of the ‘Britannia’. I also shared in times when the Churches were seeking to work more close-ly together to present and proclaim God’s love in Leith. This journey has travelled through many good times and also some difficult times – some-times experiencing the ‘highs’ of cooperation and commitment –joint meet-ings of Elders; fellowship events shared sailing on the Forth or playing skit-tles, among others, working together supporting Christian Aid and Fairtrade; championing the care and support of those suffering from HIV/AIDS in an annual Café style event ; shared worship services ; working together to op-erate the Tea Tent at Leith Gala; agreeing and adopting a shared Forum Logo and Forum Vision Statement: but also experiencing the downs of dif-ference and delusion as enthusiasm waned and congregational issues took centre stage from time to time. As I leave Leith we are all looking forward to new adventures! Me to retirement and all that holds, living on the other side of the city; Leith Churches Forum and its constituent congregations, to new experiences un-der new leaders, striving onwards towards renewed, yet timeless goals –goals of God’s Kingdom – shared in Leith and across the world. Marlyn & I wish you all every blessing in your work together in the years ahead

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Ministry Team Jennifer Stark The Ministry Team has continued to meet over the summer. We miss Alex, who is currently on sick leave and whom we remember in our prayers. Our usual format is to exchange personal and congregational updates and at pre-sent, simply get to know each other better. At our last meeting, we recalled the work done with the team over several years by Susan Reid, a consultant with the Church of Scotland, and others; with John Tait now moving towards retirement, the collective memory of the team’s experience is beginning to disappear! We discussed the possibility of asking Susan or another person to work with us over the coming months, and agreed this would be a good idea, but the majority felt we should put it on hold for the time being, given the fluidity of the team’s membership at present. (Readers of Forum Focus may like to re-read the ‘History of the Forum’ account which was published in the September 2010 issue) and which says a little about this process). Leith St Andrew’s Vacancy Update Joanne Baird Just a brief update on where we are with our vacancy: a nominating commit-tee has now been appointed and met a few times to work on our Parish Pro-file and vacancy advertisement. We are now advertising the vacancy on vari-ous websites with a closing date of mid-September. If you are interested in viewing the profile, it can be downloaded from our website

www.leithstandrews.org

In the meantime, the life of the Congregation carries on much as normal with the help of Sara Embleton, our locum. We had a very successful supper dance on the night of the Olympic opening ceremony and so as not to miss out, we also lit a flame and awarded medals! One of our Congregation is a gardener and has begun work on improving our Church grounds. There has been quite a transformation already as you will notice as you go by. A murder mystery evening is planned for September. Our groups will all be starting up again in late August/early September and the Church building will be lively again with many children and adults coming and going. Have a look at our website to see the many activities available for all ages as well as details of our worship: Sunday mornings, Oasis of Peace and Messy Church.

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Some services & events in the Forum congregations that you are welcome to attend.

Remembrance services in all churches on 11th

November.

Leith St. Andrew's

Messy Church continues to meet on the last Thursday of each month for a fun and noisy time for young families. Arts, crafts, games, stories and singing rounded off with a light tea. Upcoming dates are: 27th September, 25th Octo-ber and 29 November.

Oasis of Peace at Leith St Andrew's Our quiet reflective prayer services Wednesday at 10.15am. A time of peace, worshipping, sharing and praying followed by a cuppa and chat. We meet in the Easter Road Hall. All are wel-come.

St Andy's Teeny Tots - change of meeting time : We meet on Wednesday afternoons in the Easter Road Hall at Leith St Andrew's from 2pm - 3.30pm for fun for babies and toddlers and their parents/carers. Cost is £1 per ses-sion which includes tea/coffee for parents and a healthy snack for the chil-dren. We now have a waiting list so if you want to join the list please email us

at standysteenytots@gmail.com

Young at Heart starts again on September 18th, meeting on the first and third Tuesdays of each month from 2-4pm. All in receipt of a senior bus pass welcome for fun and fellowship - you don't need to be a member at Leith St Andrew's!

South Leith

Worship at One at South Leith church every Thursday at 1pm –

prayers for the community and the world.

Mid week services at South Leith halls at 7pm. on second

Tuesday of the month;. None in September; Rev. Ewen Kelly will lead a workshop on 8

th October on preparing prayer. Short alternative services.

Fair Trade Tea & coffee afterwards and a chance to chat & discuss the ser-vice.

Seamen's Service Sunday 18th November @ 11am.

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Ocean Terminal and Leith Churches Together Jennifer Stark On 12 June (back in those sunny days of early summer….) we welcomed Very Rev. Dr. Sheilagh Kesting, former Moderator, and Church of Scotland Ecumen-ical Officer as our guest speaker at the Leith Churches Together AGM. Shei-lagh gave us an informed and thoughtful talk on ‘Where is the Action? Church, Community and Working Together’. The emphasis now, she said, is on local initiatives, ‘and much does happen at local level, most of which I never hear about’. She also focused on four questions recently posed by another former Moderator, Alison Elliott: Where is the action? What things are happening that are really crucial for the future? Where is there conflict and tension? Where are people out of communication with each other? Churches do not engage with each other, she pointed out, ‘for some cosy inter-nal purpose…. but because churches together care about what happens to people in the world.’ And she shared with us examples of where a relationship with churches overseas can stimulate new thinking, eg. a partnership between churches in Falkirk and those in Westphalia: ‘The fact that the Roman Catholic church in Falkirk is fully committed to this relationship is challenging the church in Schüren, a Lutheran Church, to have a look at its relationship to the Roman Catholic Church there.’ Or work done by individual congregations that, in the right setting could be owned by churches of different traditions: ‘work with asy-lum seekers and refugees including language classes and sewing groups, af-ter-school clubs, adult literacy classes, and so on.’ The Church, she conclud-ed, ‘has something to offer when it heals its own divisions and makes its unity visible. It can earn its place at the table and contribute to the decision-making processes that are vital for the future of our communities and our world’. The full text of Sheilagh’s talk can be found on the LCT website,

www.leithchurchestogether.org.uk

One recent example of building fellowship together in Leith was the Mission Shaped Intro course, which ran in May-June. This 6-week course draws on research and experiments in ‘emerging church’ or ‘Fresh Expressions’ of church in different contexts and we had 7

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participants from 5 Leith churches of different denominations. I thoroughly enjoyed teaching the group: they brought a wealth of experience and theo-logical reflection to the discussions and we never seemed to have enough time for all we wanted to chew over! A few comments give a flavour: ‘really worthwhile and stimulated my thinking’; ‘I most enjoyed sharing ideas as well as hearing about each other’s convictions and faith’. Some participants es-pecially enjoyed the prayer stations one evening: ‘very powerful and I think the most challenging part of the course’; ‘beautifully prepared and pre-sented – I particularly liked the quiet’. The group is continuing to meet once a month or so. I hope to run Mission Shaped Intro again in the autumn. If you are interested, please get in touch, ideally by the end of August, as I’d like to of-fer a time slot that would suit as many as possible. Tel. 0131 554 2578 Email: outreach@leithchurchestogether.org.uk

Pilrig St. Paul's Open Doorway

Open Tuesday & Thursday 11.00am - 1.00pm. Closed September & October because of upgrading work – reopens November. Serving tea / coffee and biscuits.

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Port Chaplain’s Report Tim Bell By the end of September there will have been around forty cruise liners berthing in Leith, and at the time of writing we have been on board most of them. Sometimes it’s difficult to quantify how helpful we have been. Maybe we shouldn’t ask that question too closely. At the very least we have shown a friendly interest in the crews, and given them an opportunity to have a chat with someone fresh, who hasn’t heard it all before, and who won’t be indiscreet about passing on confidentialities. These things are important. But often it’s more solid than that – we have run several people into the shops to do an important bit of business, or sometimes for a bit of sight-seeing, and on the last ship I was on personally, we sold about fifty phone top-ups. That’s fifty families we helped to stay in touch. Over the season, we must have sold thousands of top-ups! Lots of ports where the ships go to are pretty isolated, which isn’t a problem for the passengers who have coaches organised to take them to interesting places. We are beginning to get a reputation in Leith for being a place the crews can look forward to coming to. As I wrote in the last edition, thanks are due to the Leith congre-gations who support the volunteers in lots of little ways.

As a result of Sailors’ Society re-organisation,the partnership with Leith Churches Together is viewed in Southampton as more and more important. It has become impossible to sustain full-time chaplains, even in busy ports where they overlap with oth-er agencies, and now the Society’s sponsors are more prepared to support local involvement. Both Montrose and Invergordon, small but significant ports, have different ways of doing it. With them, we here in Leith are put-ting into practice a way of caring for seafarers that other people are looking at. It will soon be time to think about Christmas parcels for the seafarers. Last year was our first time, and we learned a lot. A small group will do the plan-ning and acquire the contents, but no doubt we will appreciate help with assembling and wrapping when the time comes. Watch this space!

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Leith Churches Holiday Club 2012 Jennifer Stark As I write, it’s just over halfway through the Olym-pics and the excitement is building along with the number of medals! ‘On Your Marks’ the Olympic theme of Leith Churches Holiday Club, also gen-erated huge energy and enjoyment, with 60+ chil-dren and over 30 volunteers from six Leith church-es; Newhaven Parish Church also participated again. The children were divided into country teams (Italy, China, Germany, Ethiopia, Jamaica and others) and produced some wonderful craft work, including models of athletes, Olympic torches, country maps and boards, and medallions. Each day, there was an update about some mysterious happenings in Galilee and a gripping drama, featuring the nasty Mr Tip (duly exposed as a troublemaker on the last day). Plus creative prayer, games, music and much more. The lead team, Hayley, Neil, Chris-tine and Andre, put in many hours of work behind the scenes, as did all the volunteers and teenage helpers. For photos of the week, see the Holiday Club website,

www.lchc.yolasite.com (link also from

www.leithchurchestogether.org.uk). Join us next year….!

"this was my child's first time attending and he loved it... so much so he's not just coming back next year... but every year, he informs me!"

"I met one of the kids at church yesterday with his mother. He had enjoyed the week so much he got up early on Saturday to come to the holiday club!"

Extract from church magazine: Expenditure on choir outings: deficit from last year, owing to the minister, £3.50.

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Singchronicity, Vocal Vibes and Pilrig Chorus John Tait Following Martin Ritchie’s acceptance by the Church of Scotland as a Candi-date for the Ministry of Word & Sacrament, Pilrig St Paul’s continues its search for one or perhaps two people to pick up on and take forward the mu-sical life and the musical outreach work of Pilrig St Paul’s Church and the Forum. Hopes of an appointment being made in time for the start of the new school year have not been realised but with the generous support and help of Martin Ritchie the search goes on. Meanwhile we are further ‘indebted to Martin’s readiness to continue in a re-stricted way to help make possible the restart of ‘Singchronicity’ and ‘Vocal Vibes’ on Wednesday 22

nd August.

The choirs rehearse as normal from 4.00-5.30pm each Wednesday. ‘Singchronicity’ are working towards presenting the show “ Bugsy Malone”. If you know of young people interested in being part of ‘Vocal Vibes’ or

‘Singchronicity’ please contact Martin Ritchie mob 07984466855 email mar-tinsritchie@gmail.com

‘Singchronicity’ continues as a Forum supported venture and Congregational financial contributions play an important part in ensuring that this much val-ued and appreciated work can keep going. Martin will also be working again with the Pilrig Chorus. Rehearsals start in September- date to be confirmed but likely to be 25

th September.

Church Intimation: address (10 mins) …..Rev. ….

anthem ….”It is enough” - Handel.

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People of Praise : Ephesians 5 : 17 – 20. Why does God want His people to worship and praise Him? Does He need to be told constantly just how wonderful He is? Worship is not about telling God what he already knows, although He is cer-tainly worthy of our praise. Praise enables us to recall who God is – its an antidote to the forgetfulness we often have. As we magnify the Lord, it's not that we make Him bigger – He just gets bigger in our eyes. Congregational worship reminds each other of the goodness of God, as we speak to each other in psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Living surrounded as we do by confusing messages, as we come to worship, we align our hearts and minds with truth. Being thankful is healthy for us. Gratitude means that we actively celebrate and relish the good things that God does. So praise really does matter! (Lucas on Life every day) Prayer - Almighty God, You are so beyond words, yet intimately and magnificently revealed in Christ Jesus. You have called each of us to live for You. May we live with passion the life You have given us. May our hearts be filled with Your gentleness. May we share all that is Christ with those whom we meet. May we live and work, breathe and die to Your eternal praise and glory. Teach us to dance, and let the weariness drop away to feel the lightness be-neath our heavy feet. Teach us to dance, so that as we grow more care-filled we can discover life more richly. Teach us to dance, so we may catch Christ's laughter to share with the lives we touch. Teach us to dance! In the strong name of Your son, Jesus. Amen (Hilary Faith Jones – Milestones and Waiting for Jesus)

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Prom Praise Scotland

What is Prom Praise?

Prom Praise is a delightful blend of sacred and concert music, a unique and joyful fusion of performance with worship, combining the spirit of Songs of Praise with the enthusiasm of the world-famous Last Night of the Proms.

Presented by the All Souls Orchestra under the energetic and inimitable

direction of Artistic Director, Noël Tredinnick, Prom Praise is a feast of orches-tra, solo and, often, choral music. There is an element of celebration when Noël and the Orchestra invite the audience to stand and join in to sing some favourite hymns and worship songs. Then there is contemplation as they can sit back and ponder the words of a song or the brief 'Pause for Thought'.

The All Souls Orchestra are thrilled to include a visit to Scotland in their anni-versary year. For the PROM PRAISE 2012 visit to Scotland the All Souls Orchestra will be joined by West End star David Erik, rising young soprano Katharine Hobden, and Aberdonian violin soloist Caroline Sharp. The Orchestra have also invited well

known Edinburgh ministers Karl Martin of Morning-side Baptist Church and Dave Richards of St Paul's & St George's to join the tour as guest speakers. Saturday 27 October 2012

Usher Hall, Edinburgh at 7.30pm

Ticket information - Usher Hall Ticket prices: £16 & £10 (10% off for groups of 10 or more, wheelchair and companions £10 each) Available from: Usher Hall Box Office, Lothian Road, Edinburgh EH1 2EA Tel: 0131 228 1155

Online: www.usherhall.co.uk

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Your Representatives Co-ordinating Team Outreach Team Stuart Duffus SL Andrew Campbell NL Lily Gilhooly PSt.P Colin Cunningham SL Margaret Gray SL Alex Edington PSt.P Norman Lindsay NL Roy Eprile (chair) PSt. P Stuart Lithgow Lst.A Ewan Lawson LSt.A Valarie McIntosh LSt.A Jennifer Stark LCT Rev. Alex McAspurren NL Rev Iain May SL Rev John Tait (chair) PSt.P Mark Wexelstein PSt.P Forum Focus Team Joanne Baird LSt.A Ian Bethune PSt.P Stuart Duffus (editor) SL Isobel Evans SL Jimmy Hudson NL Sigrid Lithgow LSt.A Information about Leith Churches Forum can be found at our web site

at htt://leithchurchesforum.org.uk/

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Feedback or articles and information for the De-cember Focus should be given to your representa-tive by 27th October for the editor. Alternatively e- mail to the editor at stuart@duffus.org.