In July Andrea and I and the kids went to CLAN Gathering in St. Andrews. For anyone who does not know, CLAN (Christians Linked Across the Nations) is the Scottish version of the conferences that take place in England organised by New Wine. Their purpose is to equip Christians for living out their Christian lives and ‘doing church’. This was CLAN’S tenth year. As usual we had really lively worship and, as in previous years, we hope over the coming months to gradually introduce you to a few of the new songs we learned during the week.
This year’s conference theme was ‘Grace’. We had really great teaching from speakers that included Mike Breen, Mark Stibbe, Kevin Peat and Frog and Amy Orr-Ewing, as well as a surprise visit, straight from Lakeland in Florida, by Brent Borthwick. Brent gave a prophetic word that ‘This is our time’ for the Christians of Scotland to rise up and start telling people about Jesus in natural ways. Mark Stibbe also said that 2008 was the ‘Year of the Gate’, a narrow window of opportunity we had in Scotland to tell people about the Gospel, a window that was currently wide open but could close at any time.
This year Andrea and I were fortunate to be able to rent a flat in St. Andrews that was bigger than our own immediate needs. This meant that we could let others including David Purves and Richard Allison have a taste of CLAN for a night or two. We hope to do the same next year and would encourage you all to consider going to CLAN yourselves. It really is a great time of blessing, encouragement and teaching and we would love some of you to experience it next year!
Robert Mill
