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Dear Friends
By the time you receive this magazine I will have been with you for 4 months. With every Interim Ministry appointment the first months are spent beginning to get to know people and to find out a bit about the church and the community. That is something I have enjoyed doing, and I feel I am beginning to recognise faces and find my way around the town without a map!
After a few months, however, the focus for Interim Ministry changes. That is the time when we need to begin to turn our minds to the Aims and Objectives which have been agreed for this time of Interim Ministry. I hope you have managed to see the document which carries that title! It was in the last issue of the magazine, and copies are available at the door of the church. It is a very important document, and in fact it becomes part of my contract of employment. It lays down the issues that I have to work on with you.
Whenever I have reached this stage in my previous appointment, the big question for me is, 'How do we get started?' 'Where do we begin?' I wanted to use this issue of the magazine to let you know what is being suggested as the starting point for this process.
I am writing this letter on Sunday 25th February, and following the services on this day, the Kirk Sessions and Congregational Boards of both congregations - Holytown and Wrangholm Kirk will be meeting for lunch in Wrangholm Kirk Hall. The purpose of the meeting is to get to know each other a bit better, and to lay the foundation for an evening conference meeting of the Boards and Sessions which will take place in March. It would be my hope that the work we do on these two occasions will help us begin to identify the direction we want to go, and the developments we might want to consider. For example, one of the questions we want to look at is this: 'If you had three wishes for the church, what would they be and what resources do we need to get there?
This process of tackling the Aims and Objectives will begin with the Congregational Boards and Kirk Sessions, but once they have got the ball rolling, it would be essential for the congregations to have an opportunity to consider the same kind of things. The question of how you want the church to be over the coming years is not only a question for office bearers, but for everyone, and it is important that you are aware that the opportunity will be there for you to play a full part in this process. Watch this space for the next step!
Meantime, I hope you will keep asking yourself the question about what you want the church to be over the coming years. If we each do that it will help us be prepared for the day when the question is before us.
Every blessing
lain
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