GA Monday Proceedings

Today was an interesting day!
Alex Salmond, Scotlands First Minister, addressed the assembly today. I thought he did quite well, although I’ve lost the notes I took on what he said! Gutted! I do remember him talking about the link between the CofS and Scotlands national identity.

I had a great time meeting Paul Beautyman for a coffee in the rainy hall, Paul is one of the people who first encouraged me in my faith. I met him within about 20 minutes of becoming a Christian. He invited me to a week of using sports to share the gospel with young people. Sounded like a great week, so I signed up! I’ve never looked back! That week I fell in love with Youth Ministry. Paul has always encouraged me, always tried his best to help me however he could. He’s counseled me through many things, tried to help me turn my passion into action.
Anyway, we had a really good chat, I was telling him about my new job and he was telling me about his! He’s going to be the new Youth Advisor for Argyll and Bute. Can’t think of a better man for the job! You can follow his exploits at his newly set up blog.

I then went into the assembly for the Lochcarron and Skye overture. That was a heavy debate. Out of respect for the decisions made and for the General Assembly I won’t go into it unitl I’ve spoken to the Principal Clerk about exactly who and what time of communication is covered by the ‘no public debate’ instruction. Personally, I thought that, given the events of the week and the media circus leading upto the week, the General Assembly made a good call.

I’m gutted that this is my 3rd last day at GA. It’s been a really good week ,but I’m sad its coming to a close! There are two ‘pieces’ of worship I want to share with you from the Youth Reps worship time, the first is a poem shared by Iain Majcher, the Youth Rep from the presbytery of Europe.The second is a video of the worship tonight, a few months ago, my Uncle died suddenly in his sleep. He was quite musical, and had some guitars lying around. As the only other vaguely musical person in the family, my Grandparents asked me if I took take them and find good homes for them. One of the guitars I found a good home for was a Banjo. My friend, Mark Cameron, is a fantastically gifted worship leader and guitarist, this is a video of him leading worship on that very Banjo, apologies for me singing whilst holding the camera close to me! I don’t have them on the computer I’m blogging from, but as soon as I can I’ll post them up here.

If you read this before Tuesday afternoon, I recommend tuning into the CofS webstream to watch both or one of the Mission and Discipleship council and that of the Youth Assembly.