This Page is now a history of stuff that we have done

Church and community in Burntisland clocked up over 30 hours of creative, active or just quiet prayer over the Easter weekend in Solid Rock, our youth café venue. They prayed for schools, community, friends and family as well as issues in the world and for their own needs. Burntisland and Kinghorn Youth Fellowship helped us launch the 24 hours of prayer on the evening of Good Friday. One YF lad asked if he could come back at 7 am and cycled in the next morning as promised.

People got involved by praying and supporting with tea and hot cross buns and gave away Try Praying booklets. We could feel the effects of 24 hours of prayer in our Easter celebrations and also had a phone call on Easter Sunday with an answer to one of prayers on the healing wall.

It wasn’t just church folk who used the prayer space. Teenagers who normally visit our youth café in the evening came in on Saturday afternoon and were encouraged to add their prayers to the walls. They didn’t want to leave before our end time of 7pm and joined us for our rather loud and chaotic closing prayers.

A course in Radical discipleship?

I'm working through Simon Guillibaud's Book (and DVD) "More than Conquerors" as a basis for course on Radical Discipleship running on Sunday Nights in Solid Rock or preferably in the church hall if we can get the numbers to justify the move. Maybe run it "Alpha style" with a meal before? May ask all the house groups to make this their night in the Autumn? Comments - prayer welcome!

Simon's introduction - youtube

Burundi - where Simon worked for 10 years - youtube

Mission Rescue

Our children's mission is continuing on Sunday mornings, join us at the church for the start of the service, then watch Prince of Egypt

More History

I was recently sent the "TRANSACTIONS of the SCOTTISH ECCLESIOLOGICAL SOCIETY 1941-45t" it includes an article by Henry Kerr on the churches history and pictures of the church as it was then. I've scanned these as a pdf and the are available here.

Article on the church by Hendry F. Kerr

Pictures of the church circa from Hendry Kerr's article 1941-45

Sunday 12th June Pentecost Sunday, 11am

We remember that God's Spirit, God's presence, God's love, is now made available through Jesus to everyone who turns to Him.

Christians Against Poverty Service with David Kendall

Christians Against Poverty

Burntisland Parish Church is partnering with Christians Against Poverty and we have opened a cap centre in Burntisland. We are employing Pat Hanson as a CAP worker. The service is up and running. see Debt Help

Alan is now on Facebook and welcomes "friends" from Burntisland

Intelligent Church

When we looked at the subject of "inclusion" in the series on intelligent church we looked at how Jesus reached out to all kinds of people sinners, outcasts, lepers God makes no distinction between persons - He gave His Son for the whole world. We were drawn to this definition of what an inclusive church would be:

Serving and respecting all people regardless of their gender, marital status, race, ethnic origin, religion, age, sexual orientation or physical and mental capacity.

It may be something for our Kirk Session to consider.

Burntisland Festival of the Word & Spirit

~Fri 27^th to Sun 29^th May 2011~

image by Kate Pollard used with permission see: http://creativeword.org.uk/

Celebrating the 400^th anniversary of the publication of the King James Bible, a bible which was conceived in Burntisland Parish Church when the General Assembly asked James VI for a new translation of the bible.

Celebrating the living God at work in His Church, let us be a people who are inspired by the word, and filled with the Holy Spirit.

Thanks to everyone who helped make our Festival of the Word and Spirit such a great success. From our own congregation I am particularly grateful to Andy West for all his work in organising and publicising the whole event, to all on the King James Bible Group who worked with such commitment and enthusiasm, and to Andrew Duffin who set up and ensured all the powerpoints etc over the weekend ran smoothly and Ken who worked like a Trojan, and a whole lot of others…. Thanks are also due to individuals and groups/organisations who came from far and wide to contribute to the wide variety of events on offer. They say variety is the spice of life and while not everything was for everyone, I’m sure everyone will have been able to find an event that was really encouraging, inspiring and enjoyable for them personally. On a practical note most, if not all, the costs will have been met by the offerings given at the evening celebrations.

Over 250 people attended the opening night to praise God and hear Kenny Borthwick speak, and it was great to see the church so full. The Prospects Celebration down at the Salvation Army Hall on Saturday morning was a lively, happy time, so busy that they had to send out for more soup for the lunch. People were queuing in the street outside the “Potter About” café for the “Light and Life” event. Others went to “Food for Thought” to hear about Fair Trade. Many people were prayed for at the various events, and some reported being healed, or being made aware of God’s presence. Please take the time to talk to me of your own experiences of the Festival. I would especially like to hear from folks who experienced something of God’s love and power that weekend.

As I write this on Tuesday 31 May I’m still trying to process what I think God was saying and doing. For now, I can just give you a few thoughts:

The 48 hours of prayer was significant. A beautiful prayer space was created using many of the nooks and crannies of our church building. Many people found the various prayer stations around the church inspiring and helpful while others were content just to sit in a pew or simply pray at home. It doesn’t matter where it happens or what the circumstances and surroundings, but prayer is where all the breakthroughs start.

Andy Hall reminded us that the Bible is God breathed, the inspired words written over the course of 2000 years by many different authors in 3 different languages yet all telling one story. He also pointed out that the key to understanding the Bible is the gospels: we read and make sense of everything else in the light of Jesus.

Kenny Borthwick encouraged us to be bold in speaking up for our faith in Jesus. In a very quiet and unassuming way he told us and showed us that words of knowledge, prophecy and healing are for today, calling people with particular ailments to come forward for prayer. Don’t worry if you found this unfamiliar and strange, and if you haven’t experienced this kind of ministry before. But beware of making up alternative explanations, imagining it’s all psychological or somehow wrong. If we can’t imagine God acting and intervening among us, then our idea of God is far too small! All that was said and done was based on what God’s word tells us about His power in the world. The New Testament is a book of possibilities. Andy Hall gave very clear Biblical teaching on spiritual gifts and explained everything on the Saturday morning.

A disabled lady politely and forcefully told me how wrong it was to have the dance venue up a stair. Personally speaking, dance in worship isn’t my thing at all – but for some folks it’s a wonderful way of expressing their worship. I now know that disabled people also want and should be given the opportunity to dance!

Steven Anderson spoke of his time as a Baptist minister in Castlemilk in a small struggling church, kept going by an £8000 subsidy from the Baptist union. When praying he felt that God was saying to him “You have chosen to be a poor church”. He shared that word with his elders and they returned the £8000 to the Baptist union and the giving rose to the point where the church could take on a second worker. Could we be said to have in fact in some way chosen to be where we are as a church, financially, spiritually, in terms of attendance, and age profile? Is there some dark part of our psyche that can only see the church to be poor and weak? Pray about this one, and ask God what He is saying to us. What I sense God saying to me is that we are able to grow, He is with us.

I was very encouraged by the Festival. We will spend some time evaluating the weekend and while I’m sure we’ll find that there are things that we could have done differently or explained better, I have been reminded that God is big not small, present not remote, alive and not dead. We haven’t even begun to imagine what the love and power of God can do amongst us.

We would like you to come and bring all your people to the Friday Celebration 6.30 – 8.30 pm, in theParish Church No booking rquired!

With Kenny Borthwick, minister at Wester Hailes Church of Scotland,Edinburgh. & ‘Master,speak!’ dance team.

Saturday-come to the 9.30am Opening Worship_BSL in the Parish Church hall then choose from the menu….>

British Sign Language The symbol _BSLin the programme indicates sessions which will be interpreted into British Sign Language.

Healing Rooms and Light & Life training Intro on Worship and How God Speaks Today. HR and L & L then continue in their own venues after the break. Healing Rooms will charge their normal training fee (£20 / £15 unwaged). Please email us for details and bookings. Volunteers who are re-training are not required to be at the introductory session and may choose to go to something else.

Celtic Spirituality is a discussion seminar held in The Old Porte Bar. Buy a coffee and discuss this important part of our Christian heritage with Andy Raine of the Northumbria Community.

Prospects: The worship time at 9.30am in the Parish Church Large Hall is open to everyone who would like to be there. However, it is not an easy walk to the Salvation Army from there. Some people may prefer to go straight to the Prospects Celebration at the Salvation Army for 10.30am.

Places: Erskine Church is opposite the Links, Olde Porte Bar, Food for Thought, Potter About, Dance Studio, and the AmusementsArcade are on theHigh St.

Banners: We are hoping that some of the local churches will be open during the afternoon with an exhibition of banners from around Fife and across

Scotland

Prayer: Burntisland Parish Church is open for 48 hours of Prayer, day and night, throughout the weekend. Book in for an hour. St Serf's will also be open from 10am until 4pm on Saturday for prayer and reflection, with music, tea and coffee.

Please park in the car park offLinks Place. It takes less than 5 minutes to walk from there alongEast Leven St to theParish Church for the Celebrations and for the start of Saturday morning. At the 11am coffee break, those who are attending the Healing Rooms training can walk alongKinghorn Road or through the park to theErskine Church.

If you need to drop passengers at theParish Church, please note thatEast Leven St is one way from the church along to the car park.

The Church of Scotland

Burntisland Parish Church

a living church in an historic building