2021 GO Team Report

From 11th-18th September we hosted a 7-person GO Team who helped us with various outreach (and in-reach) activities, particularly advertising four talks on the subjects ‘Is there more to life than staying safe?’ and ‘A tale of two sons’.

On the Saturday evening we welcomed the team - with Ross, Eleanor and Heidi returning to Stranraer, and Charis, Jamie, Labhaoise and Hannah coming for the first time.

The team had the opportunity to spend time with the congregation on the Lord’s Day at a church lunch following morning worship. After the lunch we headed into the town centre to sing some psalms. After evening worship the whole team spent some time with the Frasers, who were hosting go team members for the first time.

We began the Monday by going through the chapter Stephen had preached on the previous day (Nehemiah 9), and tried to apply the sermon by drawing out things from the passage for praise and prayer. Monday and Tuesday were largely devoted to leaflet distribution advertising special meetings to be held on the Thursday and Friday evenings (as well as the two services the next Sunday). We were thankful to have the help of Ian Gillies for leaflet distribution at the beginning of the week.

On the Monday evening the team enjoyed fellowship with the Halls, while on Tuesday Ari treated them to an Indian.

Wednesday afternoon saw some team members go to the church to help with a drop in (offering free tea/coffee and a chat), while in a new venture, the rest of the team put on a One Day Bible Club for the church kids.

On Thursday we headed off in the minibus to visit some local Covenanter sites at Anwoth and Wigtown. With four of the team members the same age as Margaret Wilson (the younger of the Two Margarets), the story of their love for Christ in the face of death was particularly powerful.

After checking out some bookshops and the coffee shop of our friends at Beltie Books, it was time to head home for tea and the first of the special meetings.

On Friday morning the team helped out at Stair Park, home of Stranraer FC, where Stephen serves as chaplain - and managed to clean every seat in the stadium!

Sadly the weather meant that another time of open air psalm singing planned for the afternoon couldn’t take place, and the drop-in was largely rained off as well. However team and congregation enjoyed fellowship together following the second mission service, knowing that a special week together was quickly coming to an end.

The next morning there were tearful goodbyes as the team left after a memorable week of worshipping and serving together, and the rest of us looked ahead to another day of worship in Stranraer and welcoming visitors to the remaining special services that had been advertised.

A busy week but one that will live long in the memory!

Audio and video from the special services is available here.

The quest for eternal life is already fully funded

‘Jeff Bezos funds the quest for eternal life’ reported The Times recently. Bezos, 57, the founder of Amazon and the world’s richest man, is said to have a fascination with preventing aging. The company that he’s investing in, Altos Labs, was profiled by the MIT Technology Review under the title: ‘Silicon Valley’s latest wild bet on living forever’.

The new company plans to open labs in California, Britain and Japan and is thought to be looking at how to ‘reprogramme’ the body’s cells to delay the effects of aging. 

While Altos Labs have hit the headlines because of the investment by Bezos, there are other companies looking to do similar things. Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal (estimated net worth: $7.5 billion) has invested in Unity Biotechnology. Larry Page, co-founder of Google (estimated net worth: $128 billion) is an enthusiastic backer of Calico Life Sciences.

Their goal? To live forever. OK, the headlines are a little hyperbolic, but they do get to the nub of the mission. While the various big players on the biomedical technology stage follow radically different methodologies, the central strategy is the same: combating death by turning back the biological clock.

These companies have managed to assemble a stellar cast of scientists and given them free rein to delve into the mysteries of their fields. Much of the research focuses on rewiring and resetting our very cells in order to remove the vestiges of age. Some of the achievements these men and women have made are impressive, albeit with some rather eye popping side effects at times.

Bezos and his fellow billionaires may have lorry loads of cash to pump into these projects, but at heart they are really no different from the rest of us mortals. No-one relishes death. Perhaps Woody Allen summed it up best when he said he didn’t want to live on in people’s hearts…he wanted to live on in his apartment. It’s very telling that men with wealth the rest of us could never dream of, are now using that money to try and stave off death. As we look at them, we see their riches – but they are more keenly aware of their mortality than their money.

No doubt at least some of these ventures will produce tangible results, although presumably not in time for most of us. Yet, for all the astonishing progress of centuries past, all we have managed to do is to delay the inevitable. Death is a matter of when, not if.

Christianity provides us with a balanced approach to medicine. Throughout the centuries, Christian pioneers have been at the forefront of the medical advances which we take for granted today. Their belief in the sanctity of all human life has led directly to the dramatically increased life expectancy we have come to expect in the 21st century.

Yet Christians recognise that death is the gateway to what comes next. As grand as these billionaires’ aspirations may be, when we look at them through the lens of eternity they seem to matter a whole lot less. If five hundred billion years is just a drop in the ocean of eternity, it’s hard to get excited about a few extra years on this side of the grave.  

For Christians, our ambition isn’t to avoid death at all costs. Our true ambition is to die well; to approach our death beds with hearts full of hope and eyes fixed on Jesus Christ and the life to come. That’s something that money can never buy.

Oh and the price for that? It’s already been paid – in full – at the cross. That’s the message of the Christian gospel. We want eternal life – in fact we were made for it – but the Bible tells us that the wages of sin is death. And so we need someone, not just to deal with our record of wrongdoing, but to live a life of perfect obedience in our place.

The writer of Psalm 49 recognised 3,000 years ago that no billionaire could do this: ‘Truly no man can ransom another, or give to God the price of his life’. Yet he had the amazing confidence to be able to say ‘But God will ransom my soul from the power of death’. That confidence is one we can share today – if we put our hope for eternal life, not on cheating death, but in the one who defeated death for his people.

Published in the Stranraer & Wigtownshire Free Press, 23 September 2021.
Based on an article by Rev. Jonny McCollum.

'Is there more to life?' and 'A tale of two sons'

Missed our special talks last week? You can listen/watch again below:

1 - Why is life worth fighting for? (audio only)

2 - New Normal, Old Normal, or Something Better?

1 - The one who thought he'd burned his bridges

2 - The one who did everything right but still wasn't happy

GO Team 2021

From 11-18 September we will have a week-long GO team (short term mission team) with us to help give out invitations to our 2021 Mission, as well as doing some other work in the church and community.

The team will arrive on Saturday evening, and the congregation will have the opportunity to get to know them over a church lunch on Sunday afternoon. You can read some short introductions to the team members below:

Is there more to life than staying safe?

Some special meetings coming up on 16th, 17th and 19th September - all welcome!

Let’s not waste the opportunity that the last year and a half has given us to ask the big questions about life.