Blog on the Learig

  13 September 2026 When Gilleasbuig Macmillan became minister at St. Giles, busloads of visitors would gather in ‘a competitive cacophony centred on the crossing’. He wished to do something to emphasise that it was a sacred place. His solution was the ‘promotion of the crossing   as the place for the ‘Holy Table’. In this he was following the Reformers in reducing the chancel to zero and gathering the people around the Table. It is such a simple concept and one which transfers to any liturgical space. The Scoto-Catholic reorientation of our kirks created two rooms – a nave and a chancel instead of one. It is now a challenged model. Ministers are trying to escape the chancel leaving their robes and pulpit behind. It has become a redundant symbol   through amplification and smaller congregations. We should redesign our kirks with what David Fergusson calls a restated aesthetic   ‘in forms of simplicity, sobriety and measure’,   centred on the Table in on...

  12 September 2026 Knox said four times a year and the Directory suggested   frequently. There may be few celebrating the Sacrament every week but many more have expanded Knox   to include Christmas and Easter, before and after the main act of worship, in informal settings like the hall or even outside. In 1992, the Kirk passed an Act permitting baptised children to take communion. When Kirk Sessions have agreed, the children have responded by exercising their own ministry and changed the dynamic of the Sacrament making it less formal, more joyful but equally awesome. Twenty-five years later, a survey was taken and revealed that only 6% of the under 18s who were associated with our congregations were receiving the Sacrament. At the same time, the General Assembly was informed that 55% of our congregations had fewer than 20 children. In 2008, there was   a series of roadshows   to discuss the   Sacrament. There were   ‘serious causes of disquie...

  11 September 2026 Peter Sparkes is the Chief Executive of the RNLI. Recently, the charity became the subject of verbal and physical abuse because it was involved in the rescue of some migrants crossing the English Channel in small   boats.   Protesters hidden behind balaclavas and laptops turned their anger on the charity. There are four important things to remember about the RNLI. Firstly, throughout its 200 year history, the RNLI lifeboats have been manned by volunteers. The people who are involved in these rescues at sea are not paid for the work they do. ‘They selflessly give up their time to keep others safe.’ said Sparkes. Secondly, the RNLI is available to rescue anyone and they have done this in all weathers, in war and peace. They have ‘selflessly dedicated themselves to rescuing people they have never met before, without judgement, fear or favour’. Thirdly, they are an apolitical organisation. They do not choose sides. They respond to the calls which t...

  10 September 2026 Participation in worship has expanded enormously from a rota of readers to   worship groups. This has been greatly facilitated by photocopiers and printers and the provision of orders of worship which often contain additional responsive material. The Kirk has made enormous efforts to provide training for Worship Leaders in schemes like ‘Weaving Worship’ and backed it up   with online resources like ‘Starters for Sunday’. More modest, local arrangements   need to be made in preparing people to read the Word and lead the intercessions. Some read poorly and some without understanding. This requires attention. For reading the Word is proclamation.   It reveals the work of God in Christ through   the presence of his Holy Spirit. It facilitates an encounter with God. In Peter Brook’s, ‘The Empty Space’, he invites a student actor to read. Usually he and his peers would clown around. Not this time. It is a passage about the holocaust. T...

  9 September 2026 It is a long time since we took our record-players down to the kirk for the Watchnight service in 1984 to play Geldof’s, ‘Do they know it’s Christmas’.   And three years later to show the children Elizabeth Laird’s retelling of the Christmas Story illustrated with Ethiopia’s beautiful iconography. Cassettes of the service were distributed to housebound people. Videos and DVDs were shown periodically. By 1999, the Panel on Worship was referring to ‘multi-media worship’ as ‘highly relevant’. In 2007, CARTA proposed a paper to help Kirk Sessions discuss the issue of screens. Whilst Covid abolished the uplifting of the offering, the Great Entry and the common cup, the Kirk   creatively used the internet to make   connections which have continued apace. With the arrival of AI, Pope Leo counselled his priests to exercise their own brain and share their faith which a machine cannot do. Despite its wonders, the screen cannot replicate the intimacy ...

  8 September 2026 On Sunday, I celebrated the Sacrament of Baptism at Crail. There were a lot of children in the kirk. I talked to them about boats and the connections which Jesus had with boats and his four friends who were fishermen on the Sea of Galilee. With a square piece of paper, I was able to demonstrate how you could make a paper boat. It requires very few moves but the trick is to ensure that the creases are folded tightly. It is difficult to do this when you are standing up and not sitting at a table! But it worked well enough. In his beautiful book of childhood poetry, ‘A Child’s Garden of Verses’, the poet, Robert Louis Stevenson,   wrote a poem entitled, ‘Where go the Boats?’ It is about a child offering his boats up to the river to see where they will go. On goes the river And out past the mill, Away down the valley, Away down the hill. Away down the river, A hundred miles or more, Other little children Shall bring my boats ashore. The c...