LETTERS

Prison faith

I was touched and impressed by the letter from ‘an inmate of H M Prison Edinburgh’ published in the January edition of Life and Work.

I value the opportunity to congratulate this person on courage and humility. I am so very glad that prayer and study have led to a new-found faith in God to be recognised in baptism with such obvious appreciation of poetry and music and the joy of Christian fellowship life offers much in the future.

I send my very best wishes.

E M Mackintosh, Edinburgh

Presbytery plans

In appreciating the points Professor Macdonald makes in his letter published in last month’s Life and Work (April), I would seek to offer a little background. The Mission Plan produced by Glasgow Presbytery necessarily has a focus on material matters including buildings to fulfil the requirements of the Mission Plan Act. However, in creating the plan for Glasgow, the Presbytery, and congregations, have placed the Five Marks of Mission at its centre.

Throughout the presbytery we are seeing the very signs of early growth which Professor Macdonald hopes for. Last summer in the north of our presbytery dozens of young people gathered for an outstanding week of activity and faith growth in Milton of Campsie, which extended into community activities at Christmas and is enabling links with local schools to be strengthened.

Towards the west, an exciting venture at Partick: Victoria Park is seeing the development of Garden Church supported, appropriately enough, by significant Seeds for Growth Funding while in the east, in Robroyston, The Shed aspires to enable people to encounter God as Creator and Restorer through a whole range of creative activities.

In the south, in Govanhill, The Well – a project supported by the Presbytery and particularly by volunteers from local congregations – has recently moved into brand new office space to provide to people from ethnic minority backgrounds assistance in Christ’s name with poverty, social isolation, limited English language skills and cultural differences. This ministry has been hugely valued by thousands who have been helped over more than thirty years.

Space prevents me from listing many other such initiatives of a type I think Professor Macdonald seeks.

I appreciate that the demands of Mission Plan work are significant. But I would not recognise the situation as entirely arid. In all this, our trust is in the God who causes the desert to rejoice and flowers to bloom in what seems a place of no growth (Isaiah: 35:1). There are signs, admittedly small (at the moment) but nonetheless present, which promise yet to flourish.

Dr Grant Barclay (Rev), Clerk, Presbytery of Glasgow

Hunger for Gospel

It was a real encouragement to read the testimony of Jiang Tiancheng in the March issue of Life and Work. Sandyford, and many other churches in the west end of Glasgow, have reached out with friendship evangelism to the international student community for many years, to our mutual enrichment.

Because of our involvement in English teaching, using Bible text, at Sandyford, my wife and I were invited to join a small team of Chinese teachers, teaching English through the Bible, some years ago, in three summer camps, in mainland China.

The camps were centred in Chinese churches, in or near the cities of Wuhan, Xian and Chengdu. We flew to Beijing and met up with some of our returnee students from Sandyford and then on to Wuhan, where we joined the team and 50 eager young students. When the young pastor learned that we were from Scotland, his eyes lit up and and he expressed such gratitude for some of our countrymen, including William Chalmers Burns, who had brought the Gospel to China in the 19th century.

The experience was one of the greatest adventures of our lives and as well as having the great privilege of sharing the Gospel, there are now 150 Chinese students in mainland China who can partake in Scottish country dancing!!!

It seems that many Chinese people are hungry for the Gospel. We will miss Jiang Tiancheng and several other recent returnees greatly but what a joy to have been part of their lives.

Alex Glen, Glasgow