I lift up my eyes to the mountains \u2013 where does my help come from?
\n<\/i>My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.
\n<\/i>He will not let your foot slip \u2013 He who watches over you will not slumber;
\n<\/i>Indeed, he who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.
\n<\/i>(Psalm 121: 1-4 NIVUK)<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are two seasons in Scotland. June and winter\u201d (Billy Connolly).<\/p>\n
As I write this letter for our summer congregational newsletter, I cannot help but feel that summer is already here. We have enjoyed an incredible transformation: we\u2019ve gone from snow in April to temperatures of 25 degrees plus in May.\u00a0 We can only hope that the Big Yin\u2019s predictions don\u2019t come true, and that our summer is over before we are even aware that it has begun!<\/p>\n
Regardless of the weather, we are all preparing for summer. For the months of June to August, things seem to slow down. Organisations finish, people visit other parts of the world and we often make more time to enjoy hobbies and activities that are not work. This can be especially true of churches: during these months a kind of contented slumber falls, as groups and events pause for a summer break.<\/p>\n
It is this kind of halting that caused Ministers across the land to often remark, \u201cGod doesn\u2019t take a summer holiday!\u201d Indeed, the LORD whom we love and serve, \u201cneither slumbers not sleeps\u201d, according to Psalm 121. Just because church activities take an often-well-deserved rest doesn\u2019t mean God does! And thank goodness for that: our world is bad enough, never mind if God decided to take time off from looking after us!<\/p>\n
The same is true of being a Christian. Following Jesus and serving God are not part-time things. We don\u2019t get holidays from being a Christian. This is a calling which is to shape our whole life: mind, body and spirit. Just because church life is quieter doesn\u2019t mean we take a break from living for God, sharing the Gospel, reaching out in Christian love. Just as God never sleeps nor slumbers, so our living out of our faith never stops.<\/p>\n
The fact that we are to never stop serving God relates to some changes we are exploring at Clincarthill. Many of you will be aware of the proposal to change to the Unitary Constitution. I know this may seem like a rather dull thing, but it is my sincere hope that making this kind of change will enable more people to use their gifts and respond to this never-ending calling to serve God. We\u2019re creating teams to enable people to serve where they feel gifted. I cannot give more detail in this letter, but the information is available: might I encourage you to seek this out, and find out how you can serve?<\/p>\n
That being said, I know that not all of us are able to serve as we once did, and that\u2019s ok: just as the church sometimes rests, so too do God\u2019s people. Yet, we are still called to serve God, and there is something we all can and must do for God\u2019s Church: pray! As such, can I suggest that, over the summer, you might pray for the following things:<\/p>\n
Thank you for your prayers, and may God bless you this summer,<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I lift up my eyes to the mountains \u2013 where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth. He will not…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8z2vw-uH","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":931,"url":"https:\/\/www.clincarthill.org.uk\/index.php\/ministers-letter-nov-2016\/","url_meta":{"origin":1903,"position":0},"title":"Minister’s Letter – Nov 2016","author":"admin","date":"7 November 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Dear friends, Firstly, let me offer sincere thanks from myself and Ruth, for your warm and kind welcome into your congregation! We have been truly delighted by your friendliness, and we look forward to getting to know each of you over the coming months. It will take us a little\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":442,"url":"https:\/\/www.clincarthill.org.uk\/index.php\/letter-from-the-manse-september-14\/","url_meta":{"origin":1903,"position":1},"title":"Letter from the Manse – September 14","author":"admin","date":"1 September 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Dear Friends This letter is very difficult to put together, because this is my last letter from Clincarthill\u2019s manse. It is with a very heavy heart that Mary and I leave you as we have been very happy in Clincarthill and we are leaving friends and that\u2018s never easy. I\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":978,"url":"https:\/\/www.clincarthill.org.uk\/index.php\/ministers-letter-feb-2017\/","url_meta":{"origin":1903,"position":2},"title":"Minister’s Letter – Feb 2017","author":"Graham Shankland","date":"18 February 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Dear friends, I hope that this monthly letter finds you well. It\u2019s difficult to believe a month has passed since I last wrote! This month, there are two things I wish to share with you in this letter. The first is to say that Ruth and I continue to feel\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":653,"url":"https:\/\/www.clincarthill.org.uk\/index.php\/letter-from-our-session-clerk-june-2015\/","url_meta":{"origin":1903,"position":3},"title":"Letter from our Session Clerk \u2013 June 2015","author":"admin","date":"7 June 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Dear Friends in Clincarthill, This is the last magazine for the summer, so this is information will keep you all aware of what is happening. There will be a Summer Sunday School from June 7th until mid August during morning worship. The annual Holiday club will run for 4 days\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":893,"url":"https:\/\/www.clincarthill.org.uk\/index.php\/letter-from-our-session-clerk-sept-2016\/","url_meta":{"origin":1903,"position":4},"title":"Letter from our Session Clerk \u2013 Sept 2016","author":"admin","date":"4 September 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"When you read this letter we will be in the month of September. I am told it is a sign of getting older when the summers just seem to fly past, and I hope you all had a restful end enjoyable summer. Already the signs of Autumn are with us.\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":511,"url":"https:\/\/www.clincarthill.org.uk\/index.php\/letter-from-the-session-clerk\/","url_meta":{"origin":1903,"position":5},"title":"Letter from our Session Clerk – Oct 2014","author":"admin","date":"11 October 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Dear Friends in Clincarthill, During this time of vacancy, it is my intention to write a short note each month to keep you up-to-date with our progress and events in our church. Each of us deeply feels the loss of Mike as our minister but we will go forward in\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clincarthill.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1903","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clincarthill.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clincarthill.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clincarthill.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clincarthill.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1903"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.clincarthill.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1903\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1904,"href":"https:\/\/www.clincarthill.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1903\/revisions\/1904"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clincarthill.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clincarthill.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clincarthill.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}