Easter 2006 Report The Development Group has met twice since our last magazine supplement, on 10 January and 13 March. A meeting with the Ministries Council, Area Team Ministry facilitator due to be held in early March had to be cancelled due to the very heavy snows and has now been re-arranged for April. At our January meeting Rev Stephen Taylor took the chair in the absence of Rev John Watson and we concluded our examination of the document which sets out our Basis of Grouping by examining what we understood to be our Approach to Outreach. This turned out to be the most difficult section of the document as we tried to interpret how each congregation saw this expression. This covered existing activities such as arrangements with 'Big Issue' sellers, residents of sheltered housing blocks and schools and the OAK Cafe. How we saw the city centre and our future relationship with it was considered to be important as was our 'target audience' and ecumenical relationships. To help further our consideration we agreed to invite Cate Adams, the City Centre Chaplain to a future
meeting. Arising from difficulties over arrangements to ensure a breadth of ecumenical representation at the service for the week of Christian Unity in January the Session of the Kirk of St Nicholas Uniting had decided not to participate in the joint service, organised by OAK. We did agree however on the format for the joint service on Transfiguration Sunday at which Cate Adams had agreed to preach. (Regrettably however Cate was unable to attend on the day.) We also discussed arrangements for Holy Week. At our March meeting we were joined by Cate who helped us consider further our outreach to the city centre. This continued to be a difficult topic which we agreed we will have to return to again. We did however agree to investigate the possibility of a service in the city centre, possibly to be televised and not in a church. We hope to take this further at our next meeting. We agreed it was important for the three congregations to become better acquainted and we considered proposals to extend a ceilidh being arranged by St Mark's into a Grouping social, possibly to be held in the MacRobert Hall in October. This will also be on our next Agenda. Proposals were discussed for further joint services during 2006 including pulpit exchanges as an alternative to previous arrangements. We will however meet in St Mark's for a Pentecost Service on Sunday 4 June. Grouping (2)
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