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Dear friends, I am now in my second month with you as your locum and right from the start you welcomed Margaret, Ruth and I so warmly that we felt quite at home. Since then we have got to know a number of you reasonably well, and no doubt you have got to know us a bit better. Can I say that it is a real joy to be among you. The opportunity and responsibility to share the gospel is the greatest privilege given to anyone. I remember before I retired I gave to John Hutchison, whom you know, a frame, which had hung in the vestries I had ever occupied, with the hope that the words, which I had kept before me over the years, might be of encouragement to him. The words were actually given to me by Willie Bruce, a former minister of John Knox, Gerrard Street, Church in Aberdeen. They were part of a quotation from Augustine, which were both humbling and challenging. They read “ Without God I cannot. Without me God will not”. These were the last words I saw each Sunday before I entered the Church to lead worship. Humbling, because in the work of the Kingdom we can do nothing which will be of eternal value, and challenging, because God has committed to us the gospel of his redeeming love in Christ and he wants to use us as his servants. He wants to work in us and through. Thank you for the opportunity to serve in the gospel in Holy trinity. We hope to be with you until the end of August before we move on to what else God has for us to do. Your servant in the Gospel Bill Thomson |
Contact article from Bill Thomson
01/06/2004
