BULGARIA MISSION cont.

Some prayer points emerging from the trip:

1. Pray that the church in Lom can have a greater missionary spirit as the members often feel that they are paralysed by their own worries about their families, the struggles of daily life & concerns about the future and this distracts them from praying for and witnessing to others.
2. Pray for the new home groups which have started recently and which are attended by a number of people who are not Christians but interested in finding out more. Pray too for George and Natalia who would like to start a home group and have several friends who want to come. So far it has been hard to find a good time to meet as George is the director of a school and often works until 2 or 3 a.m. doing administration for the school. They would also like to involve their children in the group.
3. Pray for Nikolai and Ani whose youngest granddaughter was born recently with spina bifida - the next few weeks are critical.
4. Pray for Violeta (a little blind girl) Nikolai ( a 10 year old boy, recently diagnosed with diabetes) , Pavel, Marieta, Jordan, Ani, Kamelia, Anka, Goritsa and her aunt, all of whom have health problems.
5. Pray for the people who use the soup kitchen which starts this month and for the ladies who work in it (Gina, Ivanka, Lydia and others)
6. Pray for the young people who attended the youth meetings while the Bristo team were in Lom - some for the first time and others who hadn't been for a long time. Pray for wisdom, strength, health and energy for Steffi, a young mother who leads the group and who is studying for a masters degree while teaching English and also caring for her little boy.
7. Pray for Mimi, who teaches Sunday school and is currently expecting her second child.
8. Pray for Elizabet, one of the deacons, whose husband died 3 weeks ago.
9. Give thanks for the recovery of Dr Fillipova from serious ill health and pray for continued strength and health for her as she serves many in the community.

Jennifer Purves, Janis White, Jeanette Lumsden, Robert Mill

BIRTH

Congratulations to Daniela Benjamin and Jason on the birth of their daughter Johanna on 15 October in Inverness, a brother for Lennox. Johanna was blessed at our morning service on Sunday 2nd November.

AMSTERDAM 400?

Are you interested in history? Do you celebrate birthdays? Or does a holiday in Amsterdam appeal? For any and all of these reasons you may wish to attend this event from 24-26 July 2009 as Baptists from Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia come together to celebrate 400 years of continuous witness. In 1609 a group of persecuted English believers fled to Amsterdam and formed themselves into the first Baptist Church. Now Baptists worldwide number 100 million.
Because of the size of the venue – the RAI, Amsterdam – total numbers attending are limited to around 1,700. So early booking is advised and participants must register. In issuing the invitation, Tony Peck, European Baptist Federation General Secretary, writes:
This is a unique, once in a lifetime opportunity to celebrate God’s faithfulness to the Baptist movement over the past 400 years and to catch a vision for the call of Jesus Christ to be His witness in the region today.
I have one leaflet/registration form but these can be downloaded from the website www.amsterdam400.org . Flights are available from Scotland (including Edinburgh) to Schiphol Airport. If you decide to attend, please get in touch with Bill Slack at the Baptist Union of Scotland so that he can link you with others who may be going from Scotland.
Christine Lumsden

TREASURER’S REPORT

We’re now just over 6 months into the current financial year, and financially we continue to do well.

Our targets for the year were very challenging.



Church Offerings

50000
Tax Refund

7400
from Fair (in lieu of rent)

2400
from Fair (bills)

1200
use of Halls

10000
Total

71000









We knew at the start of the year that we were facing building repair and maintenance costs of thousands of pounds. Our fabric fund was used up last year and we hoped to be able to meet these extra costs from our weekly offerings, rather than having to dip into our reserves. The challenge facing was a weekly offering of £1000, significantly up from last year, and to date we’re averaging over £1150.

We still need to be careful. There are still five months of the year to go, and we’ll only really know if we’ve met our targets at the end of the year. The programme of building repair work has now mostly been completed, and though repairs to the manse cost a little more than expected as additional repairs needed to be done, we now know exactly how much the repairs cost and we can still meet them within our budget.

Our harvest thanksgiving appeal has been a tremendous success. We have so far been able to send £5000 to LOM both to support the soup kitchen and as a gift to accompany the team that recently visited Bulgaria. There is still more to be sent, at least £1000 from gift aid. Thank you again for your support for this most important piece of our church work.

Our next special collection will be the Christmas Tree envelope appeal to support the Bethany trust. Bethany is dear to many of us, and through the Care Shelter and the Care Van work we can clearly see the importance of the work carried out by Bethany. There will also be an opportunity to donate clothing such as hats and gloves.
Paul Watson

BMS CO-ORDINATOR

For some years Dr Gill Schärer has been our BMS co-ordinator responsible for keeping us informed of the work of BMS, particularly with regard to our link missionary. As Gill is no longer able to continue this task, we are seeking a successor. Is the Lord calling you to this task? Are you enthusiastic about BMS? Could you inform and encourage others in the fellowship? If this description fits you, please speak to me.
Christine Lumsden

VISIT TO PRAGUE

In the half term holiday we flew to Prague in October to visit Tima and Yulia at IBTS. Both are well and send their greetings to the church. They’d just returned from a whistle-stop tour of North Yorkshire. North Yorkshire is sponsoring Tima’s candidacy for the ministry, and Tima and Yulia had been invited to visit a number of churches in the area to see the types of church work that was being carried out.

IBTS itself is set in wooded hills about five miles to the northwest of Prague. In the autumn the IBTS campus is really beautiful with all the trees and the changing colours. The site is set in acres of forest and open land and is quiet and peaceful. We stayed in the Hotel Jeneralka, part of IBTS, in an apartment just two floors below Tima and Yulia. The accommodation was excellent, as were the huge breakfasts – enough to keep even two small boys happy! Each day there was a short morning devotion, and on Wednesday there was a communion service, and we were able to attend these. We also went to morning coffee where we were introduced to the staff and students, and we bring back greetings from these to Bristo. We met just about everybody at IBTS, even the four legged ones (the goats who are supposed to keep the grass short – but instead eat the trees!), and we had a tour of the EBF facilities on the site.

VISIT TO PRAGUE (cont.)

One interesting aspect of IBTS we learned from Tima. The Certificate of Applied Theology students (CAT) come from all over Europe, and come from all sorts of church backgrounds. People worship in different ways, wear different types of clothes, listen to very different types of music ... and when the group first meet there are tensions. The students all live together, and Tima says that one of the aims of the CAT course is to build a community of different types of Christians, with the aim at the end of the course that they become close friends and that they see that there are different ways to worship the same Lord.
Prague itself is incredibly beautiful. In the city centre itself, it seems there is nothing ordinary. All the buildings are incredibly ornate, many are painted or covered with sculptures. Buildings of different ages and styles are crowded together separated only by huge open oddly shaped squares and tight narrow winding roads. The city is very hilly and this helps to show off the city, as does the river and its many bridges. Transport is excellent, buses, trams, Metro ... everything runs to time and services are frequent. The trip from IBTS into the city centre takes only about 30 minutes.

We thoroughly enjoyed our time at IBTS and Prague, seeing our friends and seeing a little of the city.
Paul, Linda, Michael and David Watson

THE LEPROSY MISSION

Do you think of leprosy as an ancient or even mediaeval disease? Sadly it is still prevalent in many parts of the world to devastating effect. We were approached by The Leprosy Mission Scotland and were asked to consider inviting a speaker from the Mission to promote its work and raise awareness of the difficulties experienced by those affected, often in the poorest countries of the world. At the deacons’ meeting last month we agreed that the most effective way to do this would be through cell groups. There are leaflets available by the notice board to give group leaders or members more information should you wish to invite a speaker. Further details are also available from the Mission’s website www.tlmscotland.org.uk
Christine Lumsden

CHRISTMAS SERVICES

We will be having the following services over the Christmas period:

Thursday 25 December 10.30 a.m. Christmas morning service
Sunday 28 December 11 a.m. and 6.30 p.m.
Wednesday 31 December 11.15 p.m. Watchnight Service
Sunday 4 January 11 a.m. and 6.30 p.m.

MORNING OF PRAYER

Join us on Saturday 10 January from 10 a.m. till 1 p.m. for a morning of prayer at the start of the New Year. Soup and rolls will be served afterwards beginning at 1 p.m.

Meditation

A MEDITATION BY A CONTEMPORARY KAREN CHURCH LEADER

The Karen are a Burmese ethnic tribal group of 6 to 7 million people, 40% of whom are Christian. They have suffered continual harassment from the Burmese army for many years, and large numbers of them now live in large refugee camps along the Thai-Burmese border. Many of the villages devastated by the recent hurricanes and subsequent flooding were Karen.


They call us a displaced people,
But praise God, we are not misplaced.
They say they see no hope for our future,
But praise God our future is as bright as the promises of God.
They say they see that the life of our people is a misery,
But praise God our life is a mystery.
For what they say is what they see,
And what they see is temporal.
But ours is the eternal.
All because we put ourselves
In the hands of the God we trust.

Gill Schärer

Editorial - September / October edition

In Hebrews 13: 20-21 the writer prayed that God might fully equip them for ‘everything good for doing his will’. The apostle Peter wrote (2 Peter 1: 3) that God has given us everything we need for life and godliness.
Some of the people I work with will be going away on expeditions to far-flung islands in the Pacific Ocean later this month. Months of planning and organisation have gone into these expeditions. Because the areas are so remote and because there are specific objectives and tasks, everyone must be fully equipped, ready for every eventuality.
How much more must we be fully equipped for every eventuality that God causes to come our way! We may not be travelling thousands of miles to some remote spot on the planet but whatever we do for God we can be sure that he has already equipped us with everything we need.
Robert Mill

FROM THE PASTOR

Dear Family in Christ,

Autumn has arrived! And all of us settle down to concentrate on the tasks in hand. For me, just back from two weeks tutoring in Prague, it is a real privilege and honour to share this challenge with you. Because, returning from a gathering of Christians from all over the world, I am acutely aware of what has been entrusted to us, as the Christian church. It is an awesome thing.

I believe that we, at Bristo, have been called to pioneer new ways of living out church as community. Not just a community that exists for itself. But a community seeking to work out how we can give expression to a life that prioritises care for the genuinely disadvantaged, promoting justice and mercy; and doing so where we can make it count the most.

What do I mean by that? Well, I mean that what matters most is the way we treat and deal with people who are around us each day. And also what we do with what has been entrusted to us. If nothing else, the present collapse of major financial institutions should make us wake up to the fact that there is no security in pursuing security in this world! We live in a culture where people have prized privacy and personal prosperity. And now we reap the fruit of it.

Following Jesus involves breaking out of the cocoon. It takes us outside the illusions of permanency and the fantasy of unchanging constants. Following Jesus means that we plunge into the depths of discipleship and commit to the risks of radical obedience.

I feel genuinely sorry for people who imagine there can be any permanency in this world, a world torn by sin and marred by madness. The message that we have to offer and share is that permanency now is an illusion. What matters, rather, is pouring the resource of our lives into the purposes of God and participation with Him in what He wants and what He is doing.

So let us enter this autumn alert and awake. Let us encourage each other to focus on being conduits of God’s love and mercy, filled and empowered with the Holy Spirit. Let us look to do the work of the Kingdom, rather than wring our hands over the collapse of follies. And rejoice that God has called us into a life that spans beyond the present into His future.

With love in Christ Jesus,
Jim

WEDDING

Matthew (Matt) Baines and Karolina Kurtyka were married in Bristo on Saturday 13 September by Rev. Jim Purves. Matt’s two best men were his brother, Luke, and Philip Norcross while Karolina’s bridesmaids were her sister Lucyna and her best friend Agnieszka Belz. The service was conducted in both English and Polish for the benefit of a sizeable contingent of Karolina’s relatives and friends and the actual marriage ceremony was preceded by a Polish hymn adapted from Song of Songs 8: 6-7a, sung by Andrea Mill and Sam Kawamura accompanied by the praise band. After the ceremony Matt’s father Geoffrey Baines gave the message. The reception was held in Leith Methodist Hall where those invited enjoyed good food and ceilidh dancing. We wish God’s blessings upon Matt and Karolina as they begin the journey of married life together.

NEW DAYTIME CELL GROUP

There is the possibility of starting a daytime cell group. This would most likely be on a Thursday morning. If anyone is interested in coming along to a cell group then, please get in touch with me so that we can get started as soon as possible.
Andrea Mill (07974 824236 or 476 3938 or
andrea.mill@blueyonder.co.uk)

TREASURER’S REPORT

First of all I’d again briefly like to summarise part of our budget for the coming year. It seems such a shame to talk about our Church in terms of financial targets, it make us seem like so much like a business ... but the truth is we need money to pay our running costs and other bills, and we need money to be able to support the causes we feel as a Church we need to support
We’re budgeting this year overall to spend around £78000. This includes our running costs of £56000, building repairs of £14000 and gifts to the causes we support of £7700.
To meet these costs without spending from our reserves we need the following income:


Church Offerings 50000
Tax Refund 7400
from Fair Trust (in lieu of rent) 2400
from Fair Trust (bills) 1200
Use of Halls 10000
Total 71000

Special Offerings income
LOM - winter kitchen 3500
BMS 500
Bethany 500
LOM - gift with mission trip 1500
Total 6000

So, 5 months into our financial year, how are we doing ...
Offering income is averaging just under £1000 a week which is exactly the target we need to achieve. Keeping the offering at this level will mean we reach our tax refund target. Hall rental is also on target ... so all in all we’re doing very well, and should meet our targets.
This month we intend to launch the first of our special appeals, to raise money to support the Lom winter soup kitchen, an activity we have joyfully supported for the last two years, and an activity which, from the feedback we have received, has blessed a large number of people in Lom.
Paul Watson

GENERAL DIRECTOR, EVANGELICAL ALLIANCE

As reported in the last issue, Rev. Joel Edwards has resigned as general director of the Evangelical Alliance to take up another post. The EA staff have asked that member churches join with them to pray for discernment as they seek God’s appointment for this strategic post in succession to Joel. The first day of each month has been specifically set aside to pray for this. The following are some of the points for prayer:

· For the Appointment Committee and Board that they may have a clear sense of God’s leading;

· For the Directors as they lead the Alliance in the interim period;

· For the whole staff team, including EA Scotland, that their trust may be in Christ as they seek His will.

Further information is available from the Alliance website http://www.eauk.org
Christine Lumsden

OBITUARY—ALAN ROSS

We were saddened to learn of the death of Alan Ross on 25 August, a few weeks before his 60th birthday. Alan had been brought up in Charlotte Chapel, growing in his Christian faith through Cubs and Scouts. He was baptised and received into membership of the Chapel at the age of 18. A serious motorbike accident cut short his studies at Heriot-Watt University and he trained as a draughtsman. His practical skills were put to good use when he was appointed caretaker of Charlotte Chapel, a position he held for 25 years. He also served Bristo in the same capacity from February 1994 until November 1996 during that period.

As we learned at the thanksgiving service on 1 September, Alan’s hallmark was a servant heart for the Master he loved. He never pushed himself forward but was content to work quietly behind the scenes. This theme of quiet trust in the Lord was evident in the service. Although mourning our loss, we rejoiced in the fact that Alan is now ‘with Christ which is better by far’ (Philippians 1:23 NIV).

Our prayers and sympathy are with his wife Catherine (Cath) and stepson, Norman Howden, former members of Bristo, and his parents, his sons Scott, Stuart and their families.
Christine Lumsden

‘THIS IS OUR TIME’ - CLAN GATHERING 2008

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

next Edition

Sunday 26 October
for publication on
Sunday 9 November

Theme:
‘Living Community’

www.bristobaptist.org