This photo is from a church meeting after a service held in a hotel conference room a few weeks back.  It's one of the photos we used on Sunday, not that anyone could see them - the sun was so bright the screen was almost invisible!

The "Chiefly Yourselves" songs of praise service seemed to be really well received.  The hymns/songs, selected in advance, spoke eloquently both of our shared values and into the immediate post referendum context.  We laughed at some funny readings, reflected on some serious ones, sang a dozen hymns, prayed the Lord's Prayer and discovered among us "a place where [God's] love is found."

These three short posts record three very different events that took place in under 24 hours.  Two overtly 'sacred' one ostensibly 'secular' yet in each of them, in the making of community, however fleeting and imperfect, a place of holy love was found.

Saturday evening, after the wonderful ordination service, a quick change into a ridiculous outift and some pizza for tea, I headed off the SECC to take part in the Glasgow at Night Pink Ribbon Walk

Around 700 people took part, walking 5, 10 and 20 miles.  Some groups/teams, some solo walkers.  Some dressed relatively soberly, others as ridiculous as you like.

It was great fun, well organised with excellent stewarding, signage, rest stops etc.  And it was characterised by love and laughter.  Back messages of remembrance and of celebration.  People directly and indirectly affected, all supporting the same great cause.

My own sponsorship stands at over £500, which is truly amazing.

As it happens I was the first ten-mile walker home which pleased my cometitive side, but first or last or in between everyone there was a winner.

Would you trust this woman with a church???

Last Saturday afternoon, I travelled with a small contingent of Gatherers to Tillicoultry Baptist Church to attend an ordination.  If you look closely at the photo, you can see part of my head, as I was invited to among those who laid on hands during the ordination prayers.

It was a lovely service, with a good sermon on "forgetting what is past, I press on" and a warm, friendly atmosphere.  The candidate's testimony was moving, honest, open, vulnerable and engaging.  The other "stories" likewise affirmed that this was 'of God' and it was good.

This family heads south to Cambridgeshire, a great gift to a rural area at a time of political uncertainty.  God seems to like moving people across humanly-made geographical borders... there are actually more English-born than Scottish-born in that photo!

And more divine humour... this ministry will be in a church where I know one of the past ministers a little, as he was a couple of years above me at college.

May God bless L&M s&p as they journey on, fulfilling their callings in a new context.