35 mins
The Big Question
QUESTION
The Rev Drew Barrie, minister, Tullibody: St Serfs
“In the lead up to Easter our church will be running ‘The Easter Journey’ in partnership with Scripture Union Scotland.
“Over the last two years the P5 classes from the local primary schools have come to the church to experience the Easter Story.
“For the schools it fuli ls a number of the requirements of the RME syllabus.
“The presentation relies on volunteers from the congregation.
“I suspect that they get at least as much out of the experience as do the children.
“Sermons and daily Bible readings tend to focus on a few verses at a time. Seeing the events of Holy Week told in the space of a couple of hours makes us think about the whole thing.
“‘The Easter Journey’ starts with Palm Sunday as the children are welcomed down the path that leads to the church. We use laurel branches as there are no palm trees in Tullibody.
“On entering the church building, the children see the chaos of overturned tables and are told of Jesus’ cleansing of the Temple. They taste the elements of the last supper.
“We then go outside the church building and listen to what happened in the Garden of Gethsemane.
“Jesus’ crucii xion is told using one of the Miracle Maker i lms and we go to look at Jesus’ tomb which is guarded by two rather splendid Roman soldiers. After we return to the church Mary rushes in to tell us that Jesus is risen from the dead.”
Rosie Eggo, Development Worker, St Quivox Church, and The Gither Project, North Ayr Parish Grouping
“Holy Week within Ayr St Quivox Church and the North Ayr The Gither Project is going to look slightly dif erent to previous years.
“Firstly, we are joining our fellow churches across denominations in our area of the town in Holy Week Services.
“This is an ideal opportunity for the local churches within the area of North Ayr to come together and celebrate what we have in common, a desire to worship God and rel ect on His life, death and resurrection.
“We are also planning to do something special within the Priority Area parish which we serve.
“Easter is an invitation to everyone to know the risen Saviour and therefore we are going to invite our community to an Easter Celebration. We hope that this Easter Celebration can be the platform to launching Messy Church in the very near future.
“Our Easter Celebration will be both child-friendly and parent-friendly. It’s important that we reach out to the parents with the message of Jesus as well as their children as the Gospel is for everyone!
“Music, community, togetherness, fun and rel ection will feature at the event and most importantly it will bring the church and community ‘the gither’ to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus and the new life He brings.
“This is still very much within the planning stages at the moment but we are excited to see what God has in store for us and the Dalmilling community which we serve within the town of Ayr.”
The Rev Robert Hamilton, minister, Airdrie: New Wellwynd
“This question really got me thinking about what we have done in the past and what we are likely to do this year.
“But, something diferent?
“We probably don’t do anything diferent as we follow the traditional and familiar stories of those last few days and hours of Jesus before his death and beyond them in the amazing new chapter opened for us on Easter Sunday.
“What we do with our friends from St Columba’s in Airdrie is to try to look at these stories diferently to keep them fresh and ensure their continuing relevance.
“Christmas is a time to relect on Jesus coming to us, his walking our walk. This relection continues through Holy Week but takes on a diferent dimension in that for a short time roles are reversed in that what we do here is to walk with Christ to catch something of the sights, sounds and feelings of him and the characters around him. What will be diferent will be a theme allowing us to to look at this journey from a diferent angle and, in doing so, seek to understand what it meant then and what it means in an everchanging world with new challenges to face each new day.
“Through worship in the evening Monday to Saturday, a Good Friday Vigil focusing on the last words of Jesus from the Cross and Easter Sunday, we will look at things diferently in the faith, and hope that as we are challenged and comforted we might emerge as different people.”
The Rev Adam Dillon, minister at Mofat: St Andrew’s l/w Kirkpatrick Juxta, l/w Wamphray
“This year I have become increasingly aware of eforts to reduce or eliminate the use of plastic.
“I read recently that 12 million tonnes of plastic enter our oceans each year.
“Plastic residue is routinely found in ish, seabirds and marine mammals, and as far deep in the ocean as seven miles below the surface.
“That’s a shocking statistic that should encourage even the least ecologically minded to stop and think about all of that.
“I am hoping to encourage my congregations during Lent to purposefully do what they can to reduce their use of plastic and to identify unnecessary uses.
“However, there are some things that cannot be avoided.
“In our area there is currently no viable alternative to plastic milk bottles.
“The challenge will be to collect as many plastic milk bottles as we can over Lent for a particularly project.
“Once gathered in, we could use them to build a Labyrinth in the church garden.
“This will hopefully create a very visual display of how much plastic is consumed against the beautiful background of our gardens.
“That in turn can provide a Labyrinth as a spiritual walk.
“It will allow those walking the Labyrinth to relect on the mess of our human lives against the backdrop of Jesus’ sufering, and the glimmer of joyful hope and salvation that lies at the end of Holy Week.”
The Rev Peter Johnston, minister, Aberdeen: Ferryhill
“The challenge of answering this question two months before Holy Week is that the minister may have plans for something diferent, but the congregation may not know about it just yet!
“We at Ferryhill Parish Church in Aberdeen do not usually have a service for every night of Holy Week, focusing instead on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, however this year I am wanting to set the creative folks in the congregation and community a challenge for each day of Holy Week.
“The church is surrounded by elegant specimens of Ulmus – Elm trees to most of us.
“These are placed around the perimeter of the building and alongside the well-used pavement.
“They thus provide a perfect mounting place for something creative with which the whole community can engage.
“My plan for this Holy Week is to ‘yarn bomb’ the trees: to create colourful knitted or sewn pieces of artwork to depict the journey through Holy Week.
“Each tree will have its trunk wrapped with a part of the story from Palm Sunday through to Good Friday and inally Easter Day. We will add the yarn decorations to one tree each day of the week.
“My prayer is that this will stir the community to think about the story of Jesus’ inal week and to give them a chance not only to ponder the story, but also, if they wish, to be involved in the creation of the parts required.”
This article appears in the March 2018 Issue of Life and Work
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