The Faithfulness of God

After 35+ years of service, Jim Taylor died in the midst of the local fellowship that he had come to call his home church. The body of Christ ministered to he and his wife Helen in his moment of crisis.

The picture is sketched along-side the tragedy of death. No one here gets out alive!
But life withstood the threat of darkness.

The 16-year old boy with his arm around Helen and the dear friend holding her hand. Those of us praying, those of us asking questions. Someone made tea. Elaine was performing CPR on Jim until the paramedics arrived. They worked faithfully. Helen knows the presence of God in her reflection on those last moments of Jim's life. Great light!

God arranged the last weeks of Jim's life to afford him visits with family, the opportunity to say some things to select people; blessing and reconciliation. His daughter and her entire family had visited spontaneously, the day before he died, with a new camera to capture shots of Jim in seeming good health.

Nobody knew Jim's last days had come. Almost nobody. The One, True God, Creator and Giver of Life, Our Lord knows and does all things well. He is faithful.

A gentleman suffered a heart attack today during the service.

Just before we began Jim Taylor dropped without warning. I can still see the look in his eyes while I was talking to 999 and praying for him. It is deeply disturbing to look into the fading eyes of a person you know, trying to hope for and pray for change; and wondering if what you want to ask God to do, is what God is doing.

We had to move our prayer meeting in the back to occupy his wife Helen while a first-aid person worked doing compressions, then while the paramedics worked. The paramedics worked on him for around a half an hour. They left with a tank of air and a mask in place. We got news later that he had passed away. His daughter Karen has come along to stay with Helen. It has been a very difficult day.

Jim was 80. Please pray for Helen and their daughter Karen and sons David, Roderick and Colin.

Christmas is Coming, What Will You Do Differently?

Remember

Remember, remember the 5th of November...

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

(War Memorial Service in Cochrane Park)

...do this in remembrance of Me.

(The Holy Spirit) will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.

strings around my finger don't really work.
and post-it notes once crowded my computer screen.
as often as I remind myself to remember, I forget.

I forget to be different from moment to moment.
I forget who's I am
I forget how far gone into the depths I once was
I forget to say "thank you"
I forget I'm not the only one
I forget what I was gonna say...

God called us to Scotland.
We thought Edinburgh, but we found out when we got here that it was Alva.
to a dying-ish church, someone reminded me today.

A church-planter with no experience;
with heart and some mild success as part of a GREAT team.

• "What good comes from Nazareth?"
• "Please, Lord, how can I save Israel? Behold, my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father's house."
• But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise;
  God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong
  (Glad I could be of some assistance) :s

But the point seems to me to be that the Lord God of heaven and earth; the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; the Father of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ takes, people in process, to work healing THROUGH them, like percolating coffee.

I am grounds
I am grounded
I am useful in His hands

Remembrance day (Veterans' Day for UK) was a sombre occasion in a town where the men and women grew up without dads due to two world wars. There are men alive here who marched the beaches during the evacuation of Dunkirk.

Which is not to say that 8 year-olds don't LOVE a parade.


You ascended on high, leading a host of captives in your train...

Has your will been conquered?
Have you reckoned yourself dead?
How cool that it doesn't actually cost your life's breath.
Still it's pretty dearly priced.

So much of this Christian life is not depicted in the recruiting brochures!
Would you have signed up if you knew.

My identity, my confidence, by reputation, my options.
Gethsemane.

My wife has left (how much is my fault?), our church secretary has resigned (old school yielding a white-knuckled grip, making way for new vision?), one of the families I have poured most into has relocated (they are blessed and provided for) and I am sitting in this empty house writing to you. Is this worth it?

I asked God if I should quit. I think the answer was/is stand firm.
This is humiliating!

Aren't you inspired by my expertise and effective communication?

Sincerely, I see now that it has always been the Lord and I think we have lost sight of this over recent years. He is committed to our health and safety as we serve Him. Blessed be the name of the Lord.

I hope to still be standing next month,
Dave

PS Remember to pray for us.

Autumn

Last night was 4 degrees Celsius! I love the change of seasons.
This summer was great weather, though you wouldn't get that if you were asking a Scot.

Apparently there was this summer in 1963 or there abouts that set the standard for all expectation. I don't think those people check with the farmers to calibrate their prayers for sunshine! ;)





Please pray for our family as our marriage is still rocky and it is hard to keep to a hope that as God works this all out to His glory, it will also work out for our family. Liz has discontinued counseling, has moved into a flat with the boys. She is not communicating, except through texts and emails that do not address our marriage, but just insist on basic coordination of schedules. She has opened her own bank account and is attending another church on the Sundays when she has the boys. When I have the boys, she comes to Alva and watches them while I conduct the service until the kids go off for children's church.

If you know Liz, please reach out to her. She needs your support.

I considered leaving ministry all together but I am convinced that this will not affect Elizabeth's decisions. I have asked her what she wants and she isnt able to articulate an answer. If she came to me today and asked me to, I suppose I would. But for now, I am honouring the standing orders to answer the call to preach and pastor. I don't love the job more than my wife though.

My soul aches.

We are on track for the new year. I calculate mine from September to August. We have started a new Finance Course based on a model developed by Christians Against Poverty. It's basically budgeting and cash accounting. There is an option for distressed individuals to seek debt counseling, but we are just focused on a three-week diagnostic tool presented alongside the gospel.

Jesus met the woman at the well and we are meeting people at their checking accounts.

The Chaplaincy and Christian Club are running strong. We just ran a 10 week Discipleship Course for Teenagers that was very successful. Lots of the kids were from other churches, so it was a bit 'catch and release' for this fisher of men. We are building relationships with the churches around here. As long as the gospel is preached and these kids are discipled, Jesus is glorified and we are fulfilling the great commission. (Mat 28:18-20)

Seriously, at one point, I explained that having sex with a person to whom you are not married is called "fornication" and three jaws drop, one kid yawns and this one chick says "Oy I thought fornication was when you do it with a foreign guy!?" Hilarious! Tragic!

Not just kids. Suddenly, I find that my neighbours are open to conversations about Jesus and salvation. Pray for Richard, a man who recently had a stroke and then fell out of bed and broke his back. He is not an old man. His ailments slowed him down and I spoke with him walking with a walker by our home. I shared the gospel, walked away and God prompted me to come back and ask him if he wanted to be forgiven just like we had talked about. He agreed and we prayed and I was able to assure him that forgiveness resulted. Now if only we could get him into church. People are sooooo damaged by religion here.

Pastoring is hard work.

This is a post-Christian nation with a religious disposition that functions like 'spiritual contraception' to the life of Christ. Keep praying for this brazen American evangelist to speak light and life into the hearts of people in Alva. And that I would not see my family sacrificed on the altar of ministry. (Luke 9:23-24)

Sin = Epic Fail!

Today we shared the Romans Road with 18 Highschool students at the Christian Club in Alva Academy.
Every kid understood and responded to the invitation to avail themselves of the right to become children of God!

It is particularly important because so many in Scotland rely on their christening as the ticket to heaven. As if membership in a Christian family is the low bar to clear. Many more 'believe in Jesus' (ie that He was a good man, that he was a real person, even that he is God) but dont know about our need for a savior and His provision for our salvation. So few have ever considered that faith leads to a changed life.

Here's the simple premise:

Q: Why did Jesus die?
A: To re-establish our relationship with God."

Three Years in Alva

Today was a scorcher! the temperature was 66 degrees F
Not as hot as yesterday 75 Scots were melting like Frosty the Snowman in the greenhouse!
I am wearing my Tevas for the first time in three years since arriving.

June 14 was three years in Alva.

Please pray for the week of mission planned between Alva Baptist Church (Alva), Hillfoots Evangelical Church (Tillicoultry) and Ochil Hills Community Church (Dollar). OHCC has agreed to host a team of 13 americans on a short term missionary trip. They are coming from Alabama and Georgia through a missions organization in Seattle.

Also, coincidentally (or not) my dear friend Thom Wedge (who demonstrates with his life that "LoveWorks") is coming over from Denmark to visit at the same time.

On Monday and Tuesday evenings (21 & 22 June) from 5-7pm, we will partner with the visitors and the other churches, in Alva at Johnston Park, with the Jesus Booth, to reach out to the community.

It's a bit of a contrivance for them to fit Alva into their plans. And ultimately they are trying to build up their fellowships in neighbouring towns, but if Alva Baptist isn't reaching people and they can, we figure they're not against us, they're with us!

• Frasers visit the Calvary Chapel Pastors conference in York, England 28th-1st July
• Our Holiday Club (VBS) is 4-11 July in Alva (Monday-Friday)
  
• There is a Youth Discipleship Course begining on July 8th
  and continuing Thursdays through 9th September.
• Dave and Debe Harris are visiting from Israel on their way home to the USA. We will vacation around Scotland and minister with them from 19 July to 2 or so of August
  

Lots going on and our lives remain pressurized. We are confident that you will agree there are multiple dynamics at work in any of our lives. As missionaries, as parents, we all face the challenge of balancing our relationships at work, at church, with neighbours, with spouses and with children.

It seems like as a ministry family, there is a residual stress that fills the kettle with rocks so that it takes less heat and less time for a full kettle to boil over, if you know what I mean. But that aint cool and God didn't call us to walk this path without recourse.

You guys be praying, OK?