Message from the Minister This has been a fantastic summer at Errol l/w Kilspindie and Rait. The summer started wonderfully well with 6 adults joining the Church at Errol on Pentecost Sunday, with three children’s baptisms and three adult baptisms. We have also had three other people moving their lines to Errol and joining the Church. It has been great to see the steady growth in church attendance over the past three years, this is no accident, so keep up the good work. Kilspindie’s congregation has held up well, despite the ageing congregation (and minister) and bouts of ill health among the members. I hope everyone has had a restful summer and we are ready to hit the ground running for the autumn session. Rev John Macgregor Kilspindie & Rait Community Cafe We are now starting our fourth year of the community cafe which is held in the Church hall on the 1st and 3rd Thursday of the month from 2pm to 3-30pm. A warm welcome awaits any who have a free afternoon. We are extremely grateful to the folks who come from Errol for helping to make this venture successful. We hope to gain more support from the Rait & Kilspindie community. Note for your diary. Plans are afoot to hold a Ceilidh in the near future. Further details to be announced soon. 1 A Challenge To The Members Of The Congregation From The Young Folk The members of Errol Sunday Club made this list of suggestions which they passed on to the Minister! He in turn shared them with the congregation at Sunday worship…. Be safe Be tidy Be thoughtful Be friends Be happy Be good to each other Be good Be creative Be trustful Be helpful Be loving Be kind Be tolerant Be nice Be careful Be gracious Why not put the list on your fridge to look at every day? Some thoughts on Prayer Our simple prayers when we were children were appropriate and right for a child. If you still prayed when you were in your teens, your prayers would doubtless have moved on, and you will have asked the Lord for quite different things; perhaps you would have shared with him your hopes and fears, even your heartaches and tears. Later, if you entered the world of paid employment, again there would have been a new and different level of prayer as you shared with Christ your problems with your boss or colleagues, mingled with your aspirations to do well at work. But what about your present-day prayers? Surely they are away beyond the childhood level, right and proper though they were 2 then. If you are now a mature adult, how is your prayer-life doing? Has it developed with your more mature view of life, now that you have experienced the sorrows as well as the joys, the failures as well as the successes? Our prayer-lives should always be growing, developing and focusing more directly on God’s purposes for our lives and also for his Son’s kingdom in this broken world. In my early years in the ministry, I was greatly impressed by something that Martin Luther used to say to his students regarding prayer. He told them to begin first by reading their Bibles. Second, as they read they had to listen for God’s word to them arising from what they were reading. Third, they should then preach a mini-sermon to themselves from what the Lord was saying through his word. Finally, they should then draw near to God in prayer to ask for his strength and help to obey and work out into their lives the message of the mini-sermon they had just preached to themselves. I have to say that Luther’s advice changed both my personal reading of the Bible and my private, personal prayers. John Stott, one of the finest preachers and writers of the 20th century, put it like this: One of the highest and noblest functions of any person’s mind is to listen to God’s Word, and then be able to read His mind and think His thoughts after Him. When we learn to do that, we enter upon a new experience of prayer, and—more important—an entirely new experience of our Lord and Master. David Searle 3 The Errol Organ Since Colin left to take up a full time organ post in Dundee the music at Sunday services has been quite varied. We have been fortunate to have the services of David Smith and James Alexander on occasion, but at present there is no regular rota of organists. In the meantime the praise is usually led by the keyboard which the choir use for accompaniment to their anthems. The sound from this very versatile keyboard is fed through the speakers of the PA system. The burden of the recording falls on Roy McCasland and is very time consuming. We must all be very grateful to him for his great contribution to worship in this way. It is the hope of the Kirk Session that a regular rota of organists may soon be established to play the pipe organ live. Please pray for this situation and for the efforts of the Kirk Session to resolve it. MESSY CHURCH We have made some changes to Messy Church this year. We are going to meet straight after church for a slightly longer session. We will have a light lunch at 12.30 p.m. followed by the Celebration of music and stories. We will then take part in craft activities and games and finish at 2.30 p.m. Messy church is all age family church where all are welcome; to take part in activities, to help out in 4 the kitchen, or to add your voice to the singing. If you are young at heart please join us. Errol Messy Church is on Sept. 22nd, Dec.1st, Feb. 23rd, April 26th. FUN CHURCH TUESDAY Last year was an amazing year and we are getting ready for another busy year to come. Around 25 young people, P5 to P7, meet in the church on the first Tuesday of the month for games, craft and an ‘Ask the Minister’ session. We have a strong team of workers but would welcome more help. If you would like to volunteer at FCT you will need to become a member of the PVG Scheme. Speak to Karen. Our dates this year are Sept. 3rd, Oct. 1st, Nov. 5th, Dec. 3rd. YOUTH CLUB This is similar to Fun Church Tuesday but is for young people who have left primary school. It meets on the Thursday following FCT. We have a small team of workers. If you would like to volunteer at Youth Club you will need to become a member of the PVG Scheme. Speak to Karen. Our dates this year are September 5th, October 3rd, November 7th, December 5th. Please pray for all the work we do with the children in Errol. JAIRO Karen Smith This is the last letter we received from Jairo on March 25th, 2019. Hello, friend Errol Parish Church! I greet you with much fondness and I hope our God is blessing your life and your family! I thank you so much for the gift you sent me! I liked it a lot because it was a blessing and I was able to buy cookies, soap, seasoning, spaghetti, 5 cornflakes, and it has been a blessing to be able to receive it and to enjoy the things I bought. Today I want to tell you some about my healthy life. My last medical check-up was in May 2018. My mom went with me, and I got transported by walking. The doctor told me I have to eat healthy foods, and I learned that I must not eat things that are harmful for my body. To stay healthy, I do exercise and I wash my hands, I brush my teeth and I eat healthy food. What I like to do the most to stay healthy is to do exercise. I also want to tell you that at my project we are seeing the theme, ‘Keeping the communion with God, and a friendship with others’. It is a very pretty theme and this teaches us to have a relationship with God. At school the teacher also taught me the theme about dividing and decomposing. How is your family? What is the weather like? I ask you to please pray for my family for God to keep us. I say bye with much fondness and I hope to hear a lot from you! May God bless you! Your friend, Jairo Alexander. It costs us £25 per month to sponsor Jairo through Compassion UK. We also give 2 gifts a year, at Christmas and on his birthday. Many members of the church donate £5 once or twice a year. If you would like to contribute to this, please see Karen. 6 THE BIG JANUARY GET TOGETHER For those who remember the gathering in the Village Hall you will be pleased to know that the Errol team won a silver award for their efforts in organising the lunch and feature on a video which was shown at the Designing Futures Together award ceremony in the Council Chambers in June. Discussions are taking place to see if the lunch can be repeated in January 2020. REVIVE CAFÉ ERROL The café reopens on Wednesday 11th September in the Village Hall. It runs from 1.30 pm to 2.45 pm. Here are the planned dates.