Sunday 12th April 2009

I am writing this in bed because I can't sleep. I have just finished cutting and pasting some stuff for a dedication service this morning. I have been trying to 'dejargonise' the language so that people understand what is going on. Jez is preaching from 1 Peter 4 as we continue our series, so Jesus should be getting a bit of a mention!! I have actually enjoyed this series in terms of preparation and what the Lord has been teaching the congregation and I about the need of perseverance in difficult times. Tonight there is a seminar on Mormonism. We get our Small Groups to bring us one topic a year to study and discuss in our 5pm meeting. Niddrie has just had a wave of Mormon Elders plugging their wares. They haven't gone down too well on an estate suspicious of outsiders and where the only people who wear a shirt and tie are (a) the police (2) the DSS (3) somebody on their way to court/wedding/funeral (delete as applicable) or (4) crazy mormons who need to be relieved of the contents of their rucksacks. The JW's tried their luck a few months ago and were ushered into one house on the estate by some locals who told them in no uncertain terms that Jesus was the ********** Son of God - in fact he was God and they should ******** back where they came from. It's a new form of aggressive evangelism that we have been experimenting with! The people concerned came to tell me and part of me was horrified. The other part (the secret majority) was very proud of them and amazed at how such a group had come such a long way in their thinking and had even grasped (however rudimentary) how fundamental the deity of Christ is to our faith. Interestingly, neither the JW's concerned nor the mormons have returned to that particular address.