Finally! A Door Opens!

Last Sunday, January 16, I led worship and preached at St. Fergus Par-
ish Church. After the service, the congregation voted unanimously to
invite me to be their minister. After receiving the results of the voting
and verbally accepting the invitation, I went around the fellowship hall
greeting people and chatting with them. Then it was a fine Sunday din-
ner with several of the elders of the church back at the hotel where I
had been put up. Soon I was on the bus that took me back to Aberdeen
where I caught the train to Cupar.

I used the order of service that St. Fergus has been using for decades,
if not for generations. It had been unfamiliar to me until I used the same
order of service at the nearby church where the Nominating Committee
had heard me three weeks before. The Scripture readings were from Is-
aiah 43:1-5a and John 10:1-14. My big idea was that God has promised
to be with us in the troubles and trials of life. Two of the four hymns I
chose were personal favorites: Be still my soul and Be Thou my vision.
They fit in well with the sermon. For the Children's Address I looked
up in a name book the meanings of five of the ten Sunday Club children.
After the service while voting was taking place, I visited the children in
their Children's Club rooms and looked up the names of the other five.

I worked hard on shaping a good flow to the service and doing sermon
preparation. After being away from preaching for the five years when
I was at St. Andrews, I had lost confidence in preaching. Preaching op-
portunities during my year at Cupar Old helped, but they still were not
enough. I spent the last year thinking and working through both my
sermon preparation and delivery. It has been a challenging road. But
last Sunday everything came together in the sermon as well as in the
service. It was as if all my systems were back on line. I felt like I was
back to the level I was at the year before I came to Scotland. I thorough-
ly enjoyed preaching as well as conducting the service. I had fun. I hope
to be able to grow as a preacher in the years to come at St. Fergus.

I will post more about St. Fergus in the days to come. Meanwhile I am
still savoring last Sunday.

As always, blessings to you and yours,