Services

SUNDAY WORSHIP
Morning Worship meets at 9.45am in Windygates and 11.15am in Kennoway. First Sunday of the month is a Family Service. The second Sunday of the month there is a Family Service held in Star Village Hall in addition to the normal services in Windygates and Kennoway.
This includes Services for Healing; Peace & Justice; Communion and also Celebration Services at special times of the year (e.g. Harvest, Easter, Christmas). Please use the contact section to verify dates for these services.

During morning worship (except for the first Sunday of the month) at Windygates the 'Lighthouse' meet, this is for children 3yrs - 12yrs. At Kennoway the KC Club meets (3yrs - 9yrs), Trailblazers/Club 2K (10yrs - 16yrs). There are also crèche facilities at both Windygates and Kennoway. Out in Star the Star Sunday School meet at 11am August - June in the Village Hall.

What’s On During the Week
Mother & Toddlers meet in the Smart Hall, Kennoway on a Monday and Thursday mornings from 10am – 11.30pm, Mums, Dads, Grannies, Granddad's, carers are given a warm welcome and of course babies and toddlers up to nursery age are accommodated for.
Concert Party meet for rehearsals in the Smart Hall on a Monday evening from 7.30pm – 9pm.
Kirk Lunches are served from September until May on a Tuesday between 11.30am – 1pm in the Smart Hall. On Tuesday evening from October until April, every 1st and 3rd Tuesday of the month The Guild (for men as well as women!) meet in the Smart Hall from 7pm – 9pm. The Guild also meet in the Church Hall at Windygates on a Wednesday 2.30pm (contact Church Office for dates). More details from the Church Office.

On a Thursday morning at the Church Hall in Windygates you are warmly welcomed to the Drop-In for a chat and a cuppa between 10am –11am. In the afternoon you can dance off those calories at the Tea Dance which is held in the Smart Hall between 2pm – 4.30pm.
Friday evening sees the young people of the Friday Club getting together for fun and games. Children from nursery up to Primary 6 are welcome to this group which meets from 6.15pm until 8pm.
The Rambling Club leaves from the Church Car Park in Kennoway on a Saturday during March until November. Details can be obtained from the Church Office. On the first Saturday of the month from September until June the Darby & Joan meet at 7pm in the Smart Hall for fellowship and entertainment.

Message from the Minister

Dear friends,

Recently I came across a new story about a climber called David Sharp. Coming down Mount Everest, Sharp was 1000 feet below the top when he began to struggle with oxygen deprivation. Unable to adjust his equipment as he needed, the climber became ill and died. The worst part of the story, however, was that more than forty climbers are thought to have seen him struggling with his equipment, yet not one of them stopped to help. Many of them went on past, focused only on their own determination to reach the top. Among those who expressed anger and outrage at the events near the summit was Sir Edmund Hillary who insisted he would have given up his own successful Everest climb to rescue a fellow climber.

The story is like a latter day story of the Good Samaritan, except that the Good Samaritan never came along. Among the mountaineers who passed by there were several who said they saw David Sharp but thought others were better able and better equipped to help.

It’s a sad story of what can happen when we think caring is somebody else’s job. When we wait for somebody else to stop and care rather than doing it ourselves, then the truth is that too often nobody stops at all. That lonely person, that difficult neighbour, that struggling man or woman, may be needing your help or mine, and if we walk past, can we expect that anyone else will stop?

One of the things I most value about our community is the care which is so widely shown to family friends and neighbours. But that will only remain true for as long as every one of us is prepared to stop when we meet someone in need of support, and don’t leave the job of caring to someone else.

Yours in Christ,

Richard

From the Prayer Secretary

Hello once again, I hope that you are all well and still looking out for your neighbours who are alone or ill, and even if you can’t visit for any reason just say a little prayer for them.

Well by the time you read this summer time will be upon us, although at the moment it seems more like we are in Siberia, but it’s really healthy for us, or so we are told.

WAYS OF SEEING

Sing to the Lord a new song – say among the nations, ‘The Lord Reigns’ – The world is firmly established, it cannot be moved, He will judge the people with equity, let the heavens rejoice, let the earth be glad. Psalm 96.

Psalm 96 is a song of joy to the Lord who rules the heavens and earth in glory and majesty. It speaks of a predicable world that cannot be moved; a world where God puts things right with equity and justice, a joyful world where nature and nations join in jubilation.

But as we look out on this world today what do we see? We see an unpredictable world where climate change can fill a lovely spring day with unease. We see a world where there is injustice, war and the threat of was, sex slaves and child labour. Where undeserved poverty and undeserved riches both distort lives. We see a sad world where relationships are broken and unnamed anxieties haunt even the comfortable

Where is God in all this? Why is His sovereignty so hard to detect?

In one of his memorable comments, John Stott said Christians are realists, they are not pessimists, full of gloom, they are not utopian optimists sure that humanity can build a better world. We do see the world as a desperately unhappy place.

But if that is all we see them this Psalm, and indeed the whole message of the Christian gospel has failed to reach our hearts.

The promise that God does reign. He will redeem and restore the heavens and the earth we can begin to sing a song of joy now.

In many points of our lives today, in achievements, in relationships, in everyday beauties and pleasures the son of joy will break through if we let it.

But we cannot simply sing this song and turn our back on the world. Instead this vision of stability, justice and joy should move us to play our part in bringing this new world about beginning today.

Your friend and brother in Christ – Mac.

Malawi Project

It is wonderful how just chatting to people can bring good results, Sarah told her Nursery School of the Malawi Project and they raised £200. The United Reform Church in Bathgate heard, and they gave £750 for a borehole, which means our friends in the Mzuzu area will have clean water near their homes. Richard was given £375 from a local school.

A letter was sent to Robert Kaunda, the Elder from Rev Levi’s Kirk Session. Greetings from St Kenneth’s and photographs of the Cultural Evening were included. Hopefully we will be able at a future date to introduce youngsters from our church to children of St Andrew’s Church in Mzuzu. I’m sure both groups would learn a great deal from this correspondence.