The Hall Extension - getting the foundations right: 1st Corinthians 3:10-15
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Banchory Devenick &
Maryculter-Cookney Kirk |
The Hall Extension - getting the foundations right: 1st Corinthians 3:10-15
Sunday Services: Banchory Devenick Church
(South Deeside Road) 10.00am.
Maryculter Church (Kirkton of Maryculter)
11.30am (Church) 6.30pm (Hall).
Sunday School: BD Jane Ah-See Tel 01224 863301
jane@ahsee.plus.com
MC Helen Anderson Tel 01224 780352 h.anderson@abdn.ac.uk
Sunday School welcomes children from 3 years old and upward. Children attend church for the
first part of the service and go to Sunday School for the remainder.
We operate a Child Protection Policy under Nursery Head Mrs. K. Downie 01569 730202.
Spring Communion Services:
Banchory Devenick Church Sunday 30th April at 10.00am.
Maryculter-Cookney Church Sunday 7th May at 11.30am and 6.30pm.
[NB: Communion Cards should be taken and left with Elders at the door for Bruce to sign.]
KIRK & COMMUNITY ACTIVITIES IN MARYCULTER KIRK HALL:
MONDAYS:
*Congregational Board (Fabric) & Kirk Session (spiritual matters): alt. months.
*The Guild meets the first Monday of the month from September-November and Feb-May. Come along and enjoy good fellowship,
great talks, chats and a cuppa.
New Guild members always welcome. Contact Sheila Bisset on 01569731708
TUESDAYS:
*Alpha Courses and Elder Training events meet occasionally by arrangement.
Alpha Courses (10-week introductions to the Christian Faith) are a regular part of our congregational outreach.
There is a course meeting in the Manse on Tuesdays at 7pm. Courses will also take place later this year.
Contact Bruce 01224-735776.
WEDNESDAYS:
*Bible Study and Prayer Group every Wednesday, 7.30pm-9.30pm. The Group have been studying the Book of Revelation using powerpoint facilities. This book shows the patterns that God has built into the world: you get to know the ‘works’!
THURSDAYS:
*Babies and Toddlers: for young Mums who like to talk to adults too! We meet for coffee & chat from 9.30-11.30am.
Contact: Jill Greenlees at 01224 739235.
*The Youth Café meets on Thursdays from 7.00pm-9.00pm – also in Glebe Park.
All young people from P7 to S6 are
invited to join in the indoor and outdoor fun.
FRIDAYS:
*We have a Harvest Home Stovie Dance each October, the St. Andrew’s Night Concert in November
and the ever-popular Burns Supper in (of course) January!
* “Road Sense”, the AWPR Community Group, also meets here by arrangement.
SATURDAYS:
The Men’s Breakfast Fellowship every Saturday in the Kitchen from 8.00am-9.30am.
Men of all ages are welcome to come and enjoy tea or coffee and a roll.
NEW HALL FACILITIES AND NEW HALF-ACRE GLEBE PARK:
Bookings for the use of new Hall facilities (a coffee lounge downstairs and an open-plan mezzanine-floor room upstairs) should be made through Rev. Bruce Gardner, in the first instance (01224 735776), and thereafter through Mrs Anne Massie (01224 732071.
The same applies our new Glebe Park. The complex has a disabled toilet, and an office with photocopying facilities for kirk and community.
KIRK & COMMUNITY ARE WELCOME TO USE THE ROOMS FULLY!
The Hall Extension
Maryculter Church has never stood still. In 1787, when the first church was built on the site, the parish was already many
centuries old, being a Templar Foundation at St Mary’s Chapel on the river, with roots deep in European and Scots culture and
history. To show continuity with the past, they brought stones from the chapel, now a deconsecrated site, and placed them on
1787 foundations. In 1882, a substantial improvement was wrought with the cruciform shape established by adding the Hall.
The addition of a ‘top piece’ to the cross on the west side, where the organ is, with beautiful stained-glass windows and
exquisite wooden furniture, completed the cross. An added kitchen and toilet, in the 20th century, by an anonymous donation,
gave the building its present shape. On the inside, later, the hall was carpeted to be safe for kiddies. Recent adaptation
of a box pew, into an area for Bible Reading and Sunday School nativity plays, continued an old tradition of quiet change,
meeting the needs of the hour, as one generation succeeds another. New legislation on access and health and safety, with
cramped space in the Vestry and Hall (cluttered by equipment) - allied to the Minister’s proposal of a functioning church
office that will be a real focus for the church and community in the twenty-first century – all led to the extension plan.
Many long hours of heart-searching over technical challenges, and the overcoming of the planning difficulties, led to the
plan opposite: a two-storey building costing £82K (10K of which is offset by a gift from the Church of Scotland).
It includes enlarged Vestry, two new access doors, Gents and Disabled toilets, Office, Coffee Lounge and Upper Room.
The glass link will be a light airy place with children’s winning art mobiles. Our thanks are due to Architect Ian Rodger
and Jim Grant, Special Projects Convenor, for their Trojan work on it. B.
EXTENSION PLAN. The old part has new doors, enlarged vestry & men’s WC.
Stained Glass Fund Found: Thanks to the researches of Elder John McCafferty, a long-sidelined Stained Glass Fund for
Banchory Devenick has been unearthed. Bill McGregor and Jack Devanny,
joint BD Property Convenors, will look into the possibilities for a local craftsman to adorn the east window of the building. NEWS FROM CONGREGATIONAL ACTIVITIES:
Above:
Banchory Devenick with the East window: it may have stained glass.
Below: Maryculter vestibule with new shelves and neatly-painted surfaces.
BD Car Park: A meeting was held with the Minister, Rev. Bruce Gardner, hard-working Special Projects man, Jim Grant,
Depute Session Clerk Bill McGregor and Douglas Allan and Wendy Summer of
Aberdeenshire Council, at which real progress was made for a new car park and paths round the cemetery. News soon.
New Maryculter Convenor: The Congregational Board was pleased to appoint Ian Law as Property Convenor of Maryculter.
Since then, he had exhibited notable flair in planting and painting. Ron Spark of Netherley was commissioned to make shelves
for hymn books and Ian agreed to stain them and paint the entrances. The pleasing effect has been commented on by many.
God’s house, as we Scots call it, is worthy of our care and consideration, and we are grateful to God for Ian’s work.
The Guild
has seen a range of speakers from
Frank Green,
on his fascinating work in Thailand, to
Cate Adams,
on equally-fascinating work in Aberdeen Shopping Malls.
Sheila Bisset,
able President, is committed to a stimulating and modern series of relevant topics to inspire and encourage Christians to
participate in the work of God.
Youth Café:
We’ve benefited from a number of donations, most notably the ¾ table tennis table from the
Community Council,
and the computers from
Aberdeen College,
to which were added desks donated by
Mr and Mrs Pete Thorne.
Youth Café is small but safe and fun to be in, with PS2’s, karaoke, dance mats, FIFA 2005 etc.
We look forward to the Spring, and the regular use of the new half-acre
Maryculter Glebe Park
the congregation fenced safely in 2005.
Multimedia Projector:
A College-loaned multimedia projector in the regular Wednesday Bible Study and Prayer Meeting has been a great help.
Aberdeen College
plans to
give us
two MM projectors, which allow hymn words and messages to be projected on a screen.
Fair Trade:
Thanks to the leadership of
Mrs Aileen Uwins
, and the willing participation of other ladies in the congregation, the sale of
Fair Trade
products is a flourishing regular feature of our kirk. It is invariably the case that a wee ‘bourachie’ of supporters surround this stall. When Bruce was in Peru, he saw that failing to support the farmers of the world leads to them being pressurised by poverty and gangsterism into turning to growing coca leaf for drugs, a drug trade that finds it way to our shores. We help
ourselves
in helping
them.
“You shall love your neighbour as yourself” (Matthew 22:39)
…AND OTHER FAIRY TALES:
Someone once said that, when people stop believing in the God of the Bible, they don’t believe in
nothing: they believe
anything. The alacrity with which people disinclined to read the Bible are willing to embrace a novel, an admitted work of
fiction, and take statements from it as proof of a fantastic conspiracy, is a testimony to the deep confusion of the sinful
human heart, on the run from the True God.
However, as stories go, it is great hokum. It will make a splash for it is based on a network of long-known tales.
(This is why the writer, Dan Brown, has been being sued by Baigent and Leigh, authors of a book called
The Holy Blood and the
Holy Grail). For the few who may not know how it goes, here it is (I take a deep breath now, and pray not to offend): it
suggests the Catholic Church has been ‘hiding the fact’ for centuries that the Bible is a ‘doctored’ set of documents about
Jesus who didn’t die on a cross, but married Mary Magdalene, moved to France and had children who became the Kings of
France!
I first came across these bizarre conceptions in a documentary series of TV programmes in the 1970’s, about a French priest,
who came on an inscription in a cemetery, which led to ‘Templar treasure’. On the way, he discovered a list of supposed
Grand Masters, including Leonardo Da Vinci - all reputed guardians of ‘the secret’. The film features top actors like
Tom Hanks, Audrey Tautou and Jean Reno.
Maryculter was a Templar HQ. The knights had an honoured history here, so we’ll face the issues in a
Da Vinci Code Night, with a DVD and powerpoint presentation on the Code and Bible.
All welcome. It will be advertised for a forthcoming Wednesday, at 7.30pm, in Maryculter kirk hall.
THE BIBLE
is the Supreme Rule of Faith & Life: it can only be read by the Light of the Spirit of Christ. Jesus is God the Son: of the Trinity. He became Man, and gave His life for us, showing His Divine Love for sinners on His Cross.
BUT WHY A FISH?
The fish was an early sign of being a Christian. The Greek word for ‘fish’ is ICHTHUS. It stood for: Iesous CHristos Theou Uios, Soter: ‘Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour’. A fish sign meant you worshipped Jesus.
Bruce and Christine Gardner have been married for 35 years and have four children and one recent grandchild. Bruce was a formerly a Principal teacher
of English, while Christine has been a Teacher of Special Needs in Torry Academy, Aberdeen, for some years now.
In their life together, educationally and serving the Lord, they have been in the East and West of Scotland (including the Western Isles), South America,
Canada and Sri Lanka. Travel may well broaden the mind, but it also focuses it on what is important, and experience has taught them the vital need to focus
on the Lordship of Jesus Christ.
Stewardship Campaign. The Stewardship Drive was encouraging and yielded a substantial
surplus instead of a deficit. This helps us to see who have now taken up a challenge to participate in the life and witness of the kirk.
Thank you all - and the Stewardship Committee!
Manse Window: With A Call For Historic Church Volunteers…
The word Baptism in our Church traditionally referred to children of those who wished to respect God, whether or not they were full members of the Church. In recent changes our society has seen, we have returned to the first century. Many people never get baptised until later in life, by personal conviction. They come to the font (or baptistry) by a profession of Faith, determined to follow Jesus Christ.
We still have young mums and dads who want the hand of Jesus’ blessing on their children and that is good. It grieves my heart to see many youngsters in our parish who are unprotected by the grace of baptism (though it is not, in itself, salvation) and I wonder if fewer children today would be attracted by drugs if their fiercely-independent parents had not thrown them to the lions by leaving them spiritually empty. But even when they bring them to Church, many parents are fitful in their church attendance. It seems attention can be very quickly distracted by competing barbecues, children’s parties, football and rugby practices. I attended a Ministers’ Retreat recently where clergy bewailed the unwelcome clashes many face today.
My children grew up in rural Lewis where the Christian Sabbath is observed, and respected. Not everyone is in agreement with its stricter aspects, and by no means everyone goes to Church, but tensions which affect folks here are absent: God has His Special Day. I often wish such simple obedience to God was the policy here, in the East: it would save so much hassle, and bring peace and blessing from God.
I generally find that those who take their profession of faith seriously do not seem to be distracted from worship by anything so they lead their families to Christ. We may be ‘living’, as some say, ‘in the twenty-first century’, but Eternity is still the homeland of souls made in God’s image. A soul is only at peace in obedience to God. I never met an undisciplined or selfish person who was truly happy. There is a call to each of us, to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. That fulfils our lives.
Nevertheless, seeing pressures on others, I want our church open daily for prayer. I would like volunteers to steward at the church, when the extension is finished. It would be an hour or so: showing people the way to the sanctuary, being available to chat and direct attention to historic aspects of the building. Modest training will be given. If interested, just call or email me and we’ll organise a group daily rota.
Bruce Gardner: (01224) 735776 MinisterofBDMC@aol.com
Don’t forget…to check out our
NEW
Website:
“But you, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.” [Dan 12:4]
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