Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers. It's great to have an extension of three years to my tenure. I feel a bit like Churchill, on VE day, saying "We may now permit ourselves a brief period of rejoicing...."

Very brief! Things are moving. The Presbytery, as you know, has grouped us together with Kilbarchan West and Howwood, to work out the future together through the three churches' "Commission". If we can agree a settlement, a shape for the future Church in these communities, that makes sense and, is sustainable, the decisions are ours to take. 

We have already accepted that the two villages will have two Ministers, not three. Given the shortage of Ministers, that was inevitable. Of course, we will also need to agree on congregations (currently three) and buildings (currently four). So, two Ministers. Congregations? Two in Kilbarchan? One? In either case - why? Buildings?

Question! If we are only required to reduce the number of Ministers, and we have already done that - couldn't we just say "Job done! Why change anything else?" We are going to have to talk about congregations and buildings, for two reasons. Firstly, as I say, any settlement is going to have to be sustainable in the long term; that means discussing these things. 

Secondly, regarding the buildings, the Presbytery now have to have a comprehensive plan; the General Assembly require them to. Work on that will start before long. If we can settle these things locally, then our agreed settlement will carry. If we can't, the decisions will be taken anyway, and then it won't be by us. And we can't talk about buildings without talking about congregations - the people who are the Church.

We and the West have agreed a way forward - a process of mediation, which we will fill in for you shortly. But it will involve each congregation in a process of consulting closely with it's members about what we think the future shape of the Church should be in Kilbarchan. Should there be one congregation, or two? Why is that? Which buildings should be used? And maybe the three most important questions of all: "What do we really want?" "What do we really not want?" and "What could we live with?"

The most important thing is how we as the Christians of Kilbarchan transmit what we have inherited to the future. These are thrilling times! Nothing is settled. Everything is open to thought and prayer. But we have it in our hands to take decisions which will shape the witness of the Church in Kilbarchan for decades - maybe centuries - to come!

Yours in the adventure of Christ,