Welcome to the St Nicholas Website.  Judging by some of the greetings we receive it seems that we get visitors from all over the world … and particularly from people who have some association with St Nicholas in the past.  So, I thought it appropriate to update our letter of greeting at this time when we have just celebrated the 70th Anniversary of the congregation.

On Sunday 25th November, St Nicholas welcomed ‘a boy’ of the congregation in Rev. Ian Currie, MBE, BD who brought the Anniversary message and sermon in sharing the special service of celebration with myself.  As we then prepared for the baptism of another baby boy of the congregation, I spoke to the young folks about the rich soil of St Nicholas where many seeds have been planted and grown up strong and true.  Ian himself, now Minister of the United Church of Bute, was a Minister when I was in training; conducting a dynamic ministry to the centre of that town and also receiving the MBE for his services as chairperson of Victim Support.

My own Ministry at St Nicholas began when Rev. David Cameron, who had just been inducted as Moderator of the Presbytery of Glasgow for this year, conducted my own Induction to the charge and remembered with fondness some of his own days of growing up in the congregation.  Then there are others Ministers like Morris Coull, Leslie Guthrie, Allan Mapherson, and Margaret McLean as well as others who have gone on to give dedicated service to the church in other ways through the Diaconal Service and also to society where some have gained places of prominence and importance in shaping our culture and nation.

In our Lord’s command to go in the cause of the Great Commission, St Nicholas’ Cardonald has indeed been rich soil, tilled beautifully by the hard work and dedication of its membership and with it’s young shoots being watered well by the Spirit to provide a new crop of dedicated members and leaders … and that is a harvest that continues to this day as can be seen by the number of folks who are still happy to lead the organisations and help with the junior church and work hard at keeping all those myriad of small but very important duties going and also maintaining our properties.

So, if this 70th Anniversary was a celebration of anything … it is a celebration of all of that.  It was also a celebration of the fact that St Nicholas’ has ‘come of (a new) age’.  This because the Kirk Session agreed that as we had reached 70 that we would wait until the 75th Anniversary and celebration going into the 4th quarter of the century in ‘high fashion’.

Where then will St Nicholas be?  Well, we hear time and time again that the Church is facing challenging times … and it is.  Yet, we should always listen more to the Spirit who whispers constantly to us that we should continue to dedicate ourselves to the Great Commission in spiritual, social and community ways.  And, St Nicholas is, as always, well placed to continue in that work with a new minister and an enthusiastic congregation.  We are developing a vision for the future and for our work in the area in partnership with the congregations around our doors.

So, they may be challenging times … but then those are often exciting times too!  I very much look forward to the 75th Anniversary which will no doubt be a time of rejoicing in the new harvest that the rich soil, the hard work and dedication and the work of the Spirit has yielded in our midst.