Parish News Round-up

Thursday August 27

Our regular round-up of news received from churches

Please send items of parish news to magazine@lifeandwork.org or Life and Work, 121 George Street, Edinburgh EH2 4YN. Digital photographs should not be reduced. Please check the quality of your pictures: images which are blurry or too dark cannot be used. If there are children in any pictures please confirm that their parents or guardians have given permission for publication.

The ladies of the Craft and Chat group at Uphall South Church in West Lothian, friends in the church and the local community have been busy knitting and crocheting squares which they have made into colourful dressing gowns.

The dressing gowns were sent to the charity Knit for Peace, who rewarded the ladies with their ‘Knit of the Day’ award.

The group is now knitting blankets – 25 to date – which will be distributed to local charities.

The Parish Church in Carlops, in the Pentland Hills, has gained its fourth award from Eco-Congregation Scotland. This is called a 'Continuing Award' because it signifies that the work that was recognised in its first three awards, covering the years 2006 - 2012, has been continued and strengthened.

The presentation was made on August 9 during a morning service conducted by the Rev Dr Linda Dunbar. The award plaque was presented to Professor Murray Campbell by the Rev Rachel Dobie who expressed words of encouragement and congratulation to the congregation.

To celebrate two hundred years since the founding of the village of Braco in Perthshire, the local congregation of Ardoch and Blackford held a service in the style of 1815. Led by the Interim Moderator, the Rev Iain Paton, the congregation came in period costume, sang their psalms seated and under the charge of a Precentor, stood for prayer, endured a fairly lengthy sermon (timed with an hour glass) uplifted the offering using collecting ladles, and then repaired for refreshments using ingredients available in 1815 and prepared by the men of the church.

An Orkney congregation has celebrated the donation of a beautiful tapestry specially commissioned to hang in their new church building. The project to build the Milestone Church in Orkney's West Mainland was a major undertaking for the then minister Rev Andrea Price. She has since moved on to St Columba's in London, but returned to Orkney recently with her husband Neil to see the tapestry take pride of place in the new building.

Neil, who is one of the General Trustees of the Church of Scotland, said they raised the money for the tapestry through him reaching his own personal milestone - his 60th birthday in 2011. Instead of birthday gifts, he received generous contributions for the art work. With the help of gift aid on the donation to the church, they had enough money to commission local artist Leila Thomson to create a tapestry reflecting the church's special place in the centre of the community.

"Leila is in great demand, and there's a five year wait for her work." says Neil. "We left the design up to her, and I put it out of my mind. So all of a sudden in January, the phone rang and it had arrived. It's a marvellous design, and every time you look at it you can see something new - the wind, the clouds, the sky, the sea all represent other things in the community and Orkney. It's wonderful."

Andrea, on her first visit back to the building, says it's wonderful to see what three congregations coming together in the new church have achieved with the space. "Leila has put the icing on the cake with her interpretation of life and worship in Orkney. It stands out and hits you in your heart."

Rev David McNeish, who moved to Orkney in January to take up his first charge, says "It just manages to catch something of the beauty and the spirituality of this part of the Mainland. It's marvellous."

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