‘The Scheme’ was a recent BBC Scotland fly on the wall documentary about life on the Onthank council estate in Kilmarnock. Having grown up in Dreghorn nearby, and having gone to school there and in Kilmarnock, although the levels of poverty and deprivation were a bit better where I lived, the culture was more or … More The Ayrshire Scheme
I can’t for the life of me remember where I picked up this piece of advice, but it has stuck with me: ‘you have to say ‘no’ lots of small times to make room for a bigger yes.’ The idea is this….you take your life and all the stuff it presents you. Find your priorities, … More Yes and No
The 17th October marks 18 years since I became a follower of Jesus…so, I’ve come of age…time to move on from the spiritual milk to the meat! It is a day I remember like it was yesterday, but so much aware of the several yesterdays that have passed in between where God has never failed … More Faithful
The missiologist and writer Michael Frost posted the image below on his Facebook page the other day. I found it to be a fascinating piece of research, whoever did it and wherever its based geographically. I think it presents a fairly accurate picture of what one might experience at some point in the course of … More Great Expectations!
In the cut and thrust of busy ministry in a big church the weeks fly by like nothing else on earth. A steady stream of sermon prep, service prep, admin, conversations and meetings of all sorts – pastoral to administrative and everything in between. And then there are the bits and pieces I try to … More Passions
Its about 9 years or so since I started to blog, first at armyrenewal.com, and then at a few incarnations in my transition until establishing this website. All my blogs are on this site and I’ll tell you….its amazing looking over the years of posts, remembering the journey and seeing God breaking in year by … More Blog Review!
None of these thoughts are particularly new, probably neither to you nor me. In lots of ways these are the ‘what ifs’ which keep me up at night and the ones that create in me disatisfaction with the place we’re currently in; the things that motivate work for transformation. what if we followed Jesus as … More What if…?
You can’t move beyond him or graduate from Jesus. You can’t get stuck into meatier stuff instead of him or exchange him for an absent theology. He’s not just to be worshipped but followed. He’s not just to be heard, but imitated. He’s not just a man he contains the very secret of the Divine, … More Sticking with Jesus
A prayer that was made at the weekend was that I’d know and hear the words that Jesus heard after his baptism in the Jordan: you are my much loved son and with you I am well pleased. That is indeed a beautiful thing to hear and yet, unsurprisingly, comes with a variety of direct … More Dearly loved son…
Well…it was everything I hoped and expected and more. The Glen was as beautiful and magical as ever. The peaty brown river was flowing softly on its course. It was a pleasantly warm autumn morning and great to meet with my family and my good friends Peter Neilson and James Faddes, who did the honourable … More Baptismal Reflections
Andrew S M Clark 