adelaide place baptist church

This is confession time. Although the whole world wide web thing is just amazing and I’m all for using it to the full, when it comes to “blogs”, I just can’t get excited at all. I reluctantly am coming to the conclusion its just my age, then I think to myself, wait a minute there are guys much older than me blogging away. Perhaps then, it’s my temperament.  I never have been interested in gossip or trivial chit chat, and though some might salivate at the prospect of getting a sneak preview of what’s going on, in someone else’s brain, it just leaves me cold. Does that make me out to be an ice cold monster with no friends?

No far from it, in fact quite the opposite. I prefer to share my thoughts and feelings, within arm’s reach of the person listening to me. I’m not even that good on the phone. As a friend once described their relationship with their car, it gets them from A to B, that’s all, (and the quicker the better) whereas Jeremy Clarkson or the Hamster or the absentee personality  of James May might get so excited about a car that they wet themselves (am I allowed to say that on the Internet??) that’s the way I even  feel about the phone. Whereas for some, a two hour long chat on the phone is their idea of quality relational time, I would rather jump in my car, drive for 45 minutes, spend 30 minutes with the person, face to face conversation, and then drive 45 minutes back.

So, where am I going with all this? Well, how would Jesus use the Internet? Would he have spent 30 years blogging away to an audience of millions, or would he arrive as a baby, go through all the trials of growing up, to spend three years of close physical presence with a select few in a backwater district of the Roman Empire? I would still stick to the original script, whether he was to make his entrance in the first or the twenty first century, as John put it in his Gospel “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us”.

So although I want a new computer with the fastest broadband speed for Christmas, I much more want a Jesus who shares my humanity by coming in the flesh,  though it limits him to being almost two thousand years too early for me to see him physically but who’s coming still makes a difference to my life and the world even yet!

Jack Quinn

We are delighted to announce that Mr Ronnie Hall who is currently a final year student at the Scottish Baptist College has accepted the call to become Assistant Pastor at Adelaide Place Baptist Church. This means that we can now move into the new sphere of ministry which God laid before us last year. Ronnie’s participation in the pastoral and preaching work of the church will release our current pastor, Jack Quinn, to specifically dedicate time to the business ministry which he has been engaged with, alongside others in Business in Glasgow.

Ronnie’s remit of pastoral and preaching assistance to Jack will also include the specific implementation of the results of a consultancy which we have been engaged in over the last two years. This points to a very interesting and encouraging time within the church as we look outward to the business world through Jack’s pioneering work within the business community, complemented by the skills and gifts of the new Assistant Pastor.

Ronnie comes to us, together with his wife Nicola, from Mosspark Baptist Church. He is no stranger to Glasgow being a Glaswegian born and bred, but has had wider experience within the United Kingdom whilst serving with the Royal Air Force. Ronnie hopes to combine his role as part-time Assistant Pastor with Adelaide Place with further post-graduate study. Over the next 3 years we anticipate that Adelaide Place will benefit from the results of that study as Ronnie engages with us in ministry within the city centre.

For all our friends who support us by their presence and by their prayers we extend our appreciation for your encouragement during these last few years. We anticipate exciting things in the days ahead!

I never thought I would see the day when Dr Ian Paisley and Martin McGuiness would be pictured side by side thoroughly enjoying the moment of a very historic day. When I think of the many hours that I have spent over the years praying for peace in North Ireland, along with countless thousands of others, and now that God has answered those prayers it is almost impossible to believe it has actually happened.

Of course as the media continually remind us the work of reconciliation hasn’t even really begun yet, there is a long way to go. It is also true of Sectarianism in Scotland and as leading churchmen gather in the Gallery of Modern Art to sign a joint statement at the new Histrionics exihibition next Thursday its a reminder we need to work just as hard in this country to ensure prejudice and bigotry is neither condoned nor encouraged within our own borders.