Meeting of the Parliament
Meeting date: Tuesday, December 3, 2013
Official Report
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Time for Reflection
Good afternoon. The first item of business this afternoon is time for reflection. Our time for reflection leader is Pastor Geoff Austin of the Church of the Nazarene in Ardrossan.
Pastor Geoff Austin (Church of the Nazarene, Ardrossan)
Presiding Officer and members of the Scottish Parliament, thank you for the invitation to be with you today. As you have heard, I serve as pastor to the Church of the Nazarene in Ardrossan in North Ayrshire.
Occasionally, I look through old sermons and wonder, “Why did I ever preach that?” A few weeks ago, I found a section in an old sermon entitled “Time for reflection”, so I thought that I had better look and see what it said. The thought was that it was time to reflect on what had happened in previous years, to see whether the things that the church had said it had a vision for had been accomplished or whether ideas had just been good ideas and were now forgotten.
A good idea becomes a vision if you continue to have a deep desire for that thing to happen. Our vision as a church was and is to meet the spiritual and practical needs of our community, and to follow the example of Jesus, who often met physical needs before he met spiritual needs.
Over the past five years, a group of creative and gifted laymen have started a cafe in which anyone can eat for a donation, or for nothing if they do not have any money. A supply of quality second-hand clothing is also on hand. North Ayrshire food bank is based at the church. It distributes 200 parcels each month. Nearly 3,000 people have been fed there in the past 12 months. A by-product of the food bank was making a meal of it, which was featured on the STV appeal in 2013. It is a school holiday feeding programme for children who usually get free school meals. A grow your own garden project teaches people how to grow healthy food and provides some fresh produce for the cafe.
The cafe, food bank and garden are all run by volunteers, including several who have a variety of health issues. It gives them a sense of usefulness and self-worth. Next week, a new programme to help ex-offenders will begin. A community craft shop displaying crafts created by local crafters was recently started and is proving to be a huge success. The Deputy First Minister’s mother, our local provost, is volunteering there today.
As Christians, we also have a vision to see the church grow. As we have sought to serve the community in a practical way, God has blessed every aspect of the church’s ministry.
It is not only churches that need vision: everyone does, even politicians. A true vision will never leave you. Why did you enter politics? Did you have a burden for this nation, or a desire to serve? Was it just a good idea at the time? Perhaps it is time for reflection. Our nation needs a Government and an Opposition that still have vision for a brighter, better nation.