A blessed Sunday

So here we are the end of a busy, but blessed Sunday. The day started with the Celebrate at Ten service, which is our modern informal service, and despite there maybe not being as big a crowd as normal (with the Bank Holiday Weekend), it went well. We were thinking about the theme of God's call to Abram, to go to a place he didn't know in advance, and the promise that he would be the father of many nations. There was even the usual appearance of Zach, the puppet who 'lives' in the pulpit, who thought he was going to be on Stars in Their Eyes...

Then we had the more traditional service, which this morning was Holy Communion. Sadly, the organist's son isn't well (our prayers are with baby James), so we had Stephen (the rector) playing the keyboard. The sound system also played a few tricks, but by the end of the service it was all sorted!

This afternoon I went out for a drive, which was nice - with the sun shining... and went past the new church being built in Dollingstown by Magheralin Parish - they're coming on well with it - that's good to see.

Then tonight we had a combined Confirmation service for Dromore and Magheradroll (Ballynahinch) parishes, with 11 candidates. The service went really well, led both by the organ, and the praise group, and Bishop Harold's sermon was excellent. He retold the story of Paul on 'Mars' hill, from Acts 17, working in the titles of a number of chocolate bars. I doubt if anyone would forget the sermon in a hurry!

Then at YF we had a special night, with catering by my ma. We had the Youth Fellowship from Stewartstown, Albany and Brigh Presbyterian Churches (in County Tyrone), and also as a guest speaker, we had Primrose Leahy, who works with ECMI, and is a missionary in Kosova. After the obligatory 'getting to know you' game - Name Bingo - we had some praise led by Dave Lowry (ably assisted on PowerPoint by Glenn). Then Primrose had a quiz on Kosova, before giving us a presentation on her work, and the situation in Kosova.

We would like to thank Primrose for giving up a small part of her holiday to come north to Dromore (she lives in Kildare) to speak to us, and also to the County Tyrone folk for coming along. (And I've just realised that this seems to be turning into a Yf report, which it isn't going to be...).