A small team from Solas had the joy of spending the weekend with Buccleuch Free Church, which meets in a quite majestic building on the edge of “The Meadows” parkland, just south of Edinburgh city centre. It’s a warm, welcoming and quite diverse fellowship whcih is deeply committed to sharing 
the gospel of Christ with the community around them. So, we put a whole weekend of ministry together in conjunction with their minister, James Ross.
The weekend kicked off with an outreach event at the church on the Friday night, at which Steve Osmond spoke about finding hope. Our world seems to be sufferring from a profound hope-defecit at the moment, and in his thoughtful talk, Steve looked at human hopelessness, and some of the symptoms of that which experience in a daily basis. He examined some of the ways in which try to construc hope for oursleves as humans and why these so often fail. He commended faith in Christ as the basis for true hope, not based upon human performance, or on blind optimism; but on his resurrection from the dead and offer of eternal life for people who come to him.
On the Saturday, Gavin Matthews came down and joined Steve for a Confident Christianity conference. The church provided an endless supply of tea and coffee, home baking and musical worship; and Solas provided four sessions of equipping and encouraging Christians in sharing their faith. Steve kicked the day off with a session called “Conversations that Count”, which is really a primer on how to ask good questions which open up conversations which can lead to the gospel. Gavin then did a session entitled “5 Steps for Answering Any Tough Question”. After more coffee and cakes, Steve then looked at the subject of hell, and God’s promise to judge fairly and quarantine all evil for ever. Gavin then delivered the final session on ‘Engaging the Apathetic’ – which then led into a Q&A time.
It was great to get so many really thoughtful and insightful questions. Equally heartnening were some of the individual conversations we had with people who had come for the day, who wanted to speak more personally and individually about their own joys and struggles.
The minister James Ross said, “I have received so much encouraging feedback in the last few weeks about the impact of the teaching sessions and also the really helpful Q&A session. Your content was pitched at a perfect level so that everyone present could certainly feel more confident in their Christian faith and be more willing to share it. Since then I know that people (myself included) have an increased desire to look for gospel opportunities and have been thinking creatively about building pathways to connect non-church friends to the church and Christian friends. It came at the right season for us as a church and tied in so well to what we have been learning in the Book of Acts. Thanks again, James”
Steve then rounded up the weekend by preaching on the Sunday morning from 1 Peter 3. You can watch that message here:
We are hugely grateful to James and the folks at Buccluech for their warm welcome, and enthusiastic partnership in the gospel We were so glad to hear that it had been an encouragement to the church!
