Banchory Devenick and Maryculter-Cookney Church

Newsletter

October 2008

Services: 1st, 3rd & 5th Sun days at Maryculter

2nd & 4th at Banchory-Devenick

www.bdmc-parish.org.uk

The Sacrament of Holy Communion will be celebrated on: 26th October at 10:30am in Banchory-Devenick Church and 2nd Novenber at 10:30am at Maryculter-Cookney Church

The Locum is Dr Heather Peacock
Tel : 01389 885679
e@mail hmpeacock@hotmail.co.uk

The Interim Moderator is Rev Donald Walker
Tel: 01330 822811
e@mail bte@uk2.net

Interim Moderators Letter

Introduction

For the first of my letters I have been asked to share something on myself.   I was born in Malawi of missionary parents, but grew up in Lesmahagow, Lanarkshire, where my father was minister of Abbeygreen Parish Church.  I received a call to the ministry and after training in St Andrews and Edinburgh I was a Probationer Minister at Kirkton of Skene and then Assistant Minister at Nairn Old Parish.  Shortly after Judith and I were married, we served as Mission Partners with the United Church of Zambia, 1981-1993.  Our two children were born in Zambia.  Ewan now works in London as an engineer, and Hannah, meantime, in Banchory as a Physiotherapist.  I have been the minister of Banchory-Ternan West since January 1995. 

What am I passionate about?  Helping the church of Jesus Christ to grow and develop, and enabling people to discover and use their gifts.   My family and friends.  Oh, and Scotland’s mountains and islands are dear to my heart, so you can tell where I love to go on holiday! 

Interim Moderator

With the Rev Bruce Gardner moving away at the end of August from Banchory-Devenick and Maryculter/Cookney, I was asked by the Presbytery of Kincardine and Deeside to take on the role of Interim Moderator.  What does this involve?

As well as being the minister of Banchory-Ternan West, I am also the minister of “BDMC” during this time of vacancy.

Lead and preside at Kirk Session meetings for ordinary and special business.

Make arrangements for the conduct of Sunday worship with preachers.

Make arrangements for special services, eg. Sacraments, weddings, funerals.

Work with Elders and other Office-bearers for smooth running of the Church.

Give guidance and advice to the Nominating Committee which is elected to seek and nominate a new minister.  Support and be available to applicants.

Ensure that all procedures are correctly followed in relation to the vacancy.

Be the representative of the Congregation to Presbytery, and vice-versa.

Thank you for your very warm welcome to me as your interim moderator.  I look forward to the months ahead of worshipping God together with you and of working hand in hand with you to continue to advance the kingdom of Christ.  It is most heartening to know that there are many committed, able and active leaders and members in the congregation. The potential for advancing the good news of Jesus Christ in this parish is enormous.  I have enjoyed taking one service so far in each of the church building, Banchory-Devenick and Maryculter/Cookney, and I look forward to meeting many more of you in the future.

The period of vacancy can be comparatively short or substantially long.  Please pray for the elders, office-bearers, organizations, and the Nominating Committee.

Locum minister - Dr Heather Peacock

Heather has just begun as locum for BDMC.  This means that she will be taking most of the standard Sunday morning services and working one day a week, primarily in pastoral care.  She has just completed 15 months as Probationer Minister at Banchory-Ternan West Parish Church.  I have no doubt she will endear herself to you, although her time as locum is likely not to be for long for she is currently looking for a church of her own.  I trust that you will continue to welcome, encourage and support her.  She, too, values your prayers for God’s leading.

We all rejoice together in the living God who equips and guides us in all situations.

I wish you all God’s richest blessings.

Donald Walker

Nominating Committee

The Parish Profile is currently being compiled.  When it is finished you will be able to see a copy on the web site.  It is hoped to advertise the vacancy in the December issue of Life and Work.  We will keep you posted on developments in the intimations on Sundays

Joan Thorne

Clerk to the Nominating Committee

Baptisms

Kieran Thorne and Aimee Thorn baptised on 20th April 2008 at

Banchory Devenick

Arran and Mya Middler baptised on 29th June 2008 at Maryculter Church
 

Christine and I would like to thank the congregation and community of Banchory Devenick, and Maryculter-Cookney parish for their heart-warming farewells, marked in the form of garden chairs companion set, cheque, vase of flowers and good wishes. The latter were expressed in many kind words and letters of support and appreciation. Thank you also to Francis and Fiona Clark for their hospitality and for making their home available for a memorable farewell social. We were particularly touched by the kindness, prayers and practical help of many during Christine’s time of illness that forced an end to her teaching career. Even if such an unexpected turn of events seems disappointing at a human level, in this broken world, God’s Word is Faith’s anchor: Romans 8:28. Also, the response of Christians helped the healing.

I would like to thank present and past Clerks, the Church Officers, Guild, Bible Study and Prayer Meeting and House Groups, along with the Session and Board, for faithfully supporting God’s work over the last six years. The congregation is poised - with added new activities, buildings, people and plans - to take the work of Christ forward in a fitting way for the twenty-first century.

May God grant you, who pray and labour for Him, the courage, commitment and consistency to rise to the challenges ahead and provide you with a Ministry of the Word that will feed His flock and build you up.  Christine and I will not forget you in our prayers. If you are ever passing through Lauder, Berwickshire, call us on 01578 722320. 

Thank you all.

Bruce and Christine Gardner.
 

 A Thanksgiving Service for Ardoe Hall and Presentation to Hall-keeper Wattie Simpson and his wife Elma was held in the Ardoe Hall on 8th August.  Wattie had been Hall keeper for 27 years and he was presented with a Border Fine Arts Nuffield tractor and plough, and cheque, and his wife Elma received a bouquet of flowers, Wattie was also presented with a lovely water colour of Ardoe Hall painted by our artist in residence Martha-Elizabeth Ferguson [Anderson].

An enjoyable evening of entertainment was provided by Fiddler, Graham Paterson, Accordianist Sandy McAllan, and Sheila Strachan recited memories of Ardoe Hall.   The star of the evening was Wattie and Elma's great grandson Liam Dyker who sang a medley of songs accompanied by his music teacher Morag Simpson.

 Thank you to Martha Anderson for organising the North East Open Studio event held in Banchory-Devenick Church.   It was a great success and as well as the art exhibition it helped to promote the work and activities within the church.   Helen Clarke our part time organist gave a wonderful organ recital assisted by her son Oscar.   Martha-Elizabeth Ferguson [Anderson] and Shuna Begg would like to thank everyone who contributed to the success of the event.
 

Sunday School

Sunday School has restarted and we have a full and varied programme planned - from Christian pumpkin carving  (I know it should be a "neep" but pumpkins are easier to carve in the time we have) right through to Advent and Christmas.  All children aged 3 and over are very welcome to join our Sunday School, we start off in church then af­ter the children's address we go off to our own activities.  We are busy learning a new song with actions and will be singing it at Harvest Thanksgiving on the 5th October, a Soup and Sweet lunch will follow the service.

Sunday School fund raising lunches have been very successful in the past both in terms of monies raised and fellowship shared.  We have used the money raised to buy worms(!!), goats, a tube well and disaster kits - these contain rice, lentils, potatoes, matches, oil and other essential items to help a family make it through the difficult times after a disaster.

                                     On September 13th Sunday School teachers went to a training day led by Linda Pollock (from 121) and her team at Finzean it was a very informative and inspiring day for
                                     us and gave us lots if ideas and encouragement for the future.  Keep watching this space as they say in the media.

Helen Anderson

Bible Stories as seen by youngsters.

From a Catholic elementary school in the US come these gems of misinterpretation.  Youngsters were asked questions about the old and New Testaments and gave these unexpurgated answers.

·         Solomon , one of David’s sons, had 300 wives and 700 porcupines.

·         The Egyptians were all drowned in the dessert.  Afterwards, Moses went up on Mount Cyanide to get the 10 amendments.

·         Moses let the Hebrews to the Red Sea, where they made unleavened bread which is bread without any ingredients.

·         The people who followed the Lord were called the 12 decibels.

·         The epistles were the wives of the apostles

·         Christians have only one spouse.  This is called monotony.

·         St Paul cavorted to Christianity.  He preached holy acrimony, which is another name for marriage.
 

Bible Study and Prayer Group

                    The Bible Study and Prayer group meet on a Wednesday evenings at 7.30 in the Happy Lounge Maryculter/Cookney church hall. 

Since Rev Bruce Gardner left our parish, Joan Thorne has been leading the meeting which opens with the singing of 2 or 3 hymns in praise to the Lord and asking a blessing from Him that His Holy Spirit will lead us in our studies.

At the moment we are studying Abraham whose story so far has taught us that living by faith, not by sight is God’s way for success (2 Cor. 5:7).  So far we have been very much encouraged by his obedience in leaving his family and home to go to the land that God had promised him.  Over the coming weeks, our study will take us through Abraham’s life and teach us what it means to follow the Lord even when His commands don’t seem to make sense to us.

 The meeting is open to anyone from any congregation or denomination who would like to join us. 

The last half hour of the meeting is dedicated to prayer.  As well as our regular prayers for our church and congregation, we include prayer requests from all individual participants.  Over recent years we have seen many positive answers to the prayers of our small group and praise and thank the Lord for His faithfulness.

Joan Johnston

House Groups

The house group for Banchory-Devenick  gives us the opportunity to get together in a very informal environment to catch up and to discuss the books being studied.  It is hard to believe that the group has now been running for over two years; and while a number of people have come and gone from the group there is still a core of people there.  It's not all studying though, equally enjoyable is the chance to catch up with friends, to find out what is happening throughout the parish and also to meet up with both house groups during the pot luck suppers.

                       Church House Groups meet in homes in Banchory Devenick and Maryculter on 2nd and 4th Mondays at 7.30pm.  All welcome. 

                       Contact Joan Thorne on 01224.783834  or Joyce Mackintosh on 01224.733495 for more information.

Youth Cafe

Youth Cafe is booming with soaring numbers and many that regularly

attend.  With  47 young people on the register. 

There are many activities to take part in at the meetings on Thursday evenings for example, football, table tennis, PS2, Internet access and several board games and of course the ever popular Tuck Shop.  We hope to purchase an air hockey table and perhaps a new computer in the near future with goal posts and a generator, for lighting outside, being our most recent purchases.  Now there

is the opportunity to play football in the winter too if they are brave enough to go out in the Scottish cold.

 If you know of anybody in the area that would be interesting in joining us please contact Dianne Brown on 01224 734687 or diannebrown@tiscali.co.uk. 

We would be delighted to see you!  You can come along for as long or short a time period as you wish between 7pm and 9pm.   There will always be a friendly welcome for all. 

Hannah Brown
 

Last time I wrote about Christian giving and why it is important.

The other side of the money question is where does it go ?  Every year the Church of Scotland publishes a leaflet ( available from me if you want one ) which shows where the money goes – and 85% of it goes on running local Churches and the central offices. All of this is well and good but only 15% for the wider work of helping the poor and spreading the gospel always seemed to me pretty awful. We need to show a witness to our members and our community that, like Jesus, we care about people in need and not just ourselves   Over the years I have “banged on” about the need to do more for the poor and disadvantaged and the most effective way to change people’s lives is with clean drinking water and proper sanitation.   Obviously education and health care are important but they’re not much good if the people are dead from thirst or dysentery.  Our church has supported Christian Aid with ducks, goats, worms and the occasional latrine but we needed to do more and especially more than we have done in the past.

The Kirk Session and Congregational Board recently decided to give £5,000 per annum for at least three years to Water Aid ( www.churches@wateraid.org ) and is giving further consideration to helping other groups like Mission Aviation Fellowship  and/or Urban Priority Churches here in Scotland.    Water Aid brings clean water and proper toilets to people ( mainly in Africa and India ) and this changes their lives in a major way.   MAF is a dynamic worldwide partnership whose purpose is to speed physical and spiritual care to people in places of deepest human need. Every three minutes, an MAF plane is taking off or landing somewhere in the world – to remote places where flying is not a luxury, but a lifeline.  This enables the work of aid and development agencies, missions, national churches and other local groups and carries their dedicated teams who bring healing and relief for body, mind and spirit

 In Paul’s letters in the Bible he gives examples of churches helping each other when some have funds and some haven’t enough.[ 2^nd Corinthians 8 vs 1-15 ]  Maybe we need to consider that.

In future issues I will highlight work we might consider supporting but it won’t be possible unless every member thinks about what they give (back!) to the Lord.

W John McCafferty

Stewardship & Finance Convenor.

 

1st Maryculter Guides

Following the success of our Strawberry Tea in aid of Breast Cancer Care Scotland at which we raised £485 our young leaders have decided to hold a coffee morning on the 15th of November in Maryculter-Cookney church hall in aid of MAF and Guide funds.   We would like to take this opportunity to thank all those who helped make the Strawberry Tea such a success and invite them along to our coffee morning on the 15th at 10am - 11.30am

Dianne Brown

Guild

The Guild meeting on Nov. 3rd. will be a talk by Heather Morrison on the project "Forget-me-not". All are welcome to attend.

Our usual coffee morning will be held in Maryculter Church Hall on Saturday December 6thTickets will be on sale during November. Please come and support the Guild, all proceeds will go to the projects.

Guild week starts on Sunday Nov 16th to Sunday 23rd Guild members will be taking part in the service on the 23rd.

We look forward to enjoying fellowship over a soup and cheese lunch following the services on Sunday 9th Nov.  Proceeds for this will also be donated to the Guild projects.

Banchory Devenick and Maryculter-Cookney Parish

Church of Scotland

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