Dear friends,

On a bright day in May Hilary and I visited the Atomium, the symbol of this city. Towering above the Heysel Plateau with its new cladding of stainless steel gleaming in the sun, this model of a molecule seems to represent
the last word in modernity.

However, the exhibitions inside provide a trip into the past. The Atomium was built for the Brussels World’s Fair in 1958. Looking at posters and photos of the event one is taken back to an era which, although within the lifetime of us “oldies”, seems light years away from today. The neat jackets and skirts and the permed hair of the “hostesses” of 1958 seem far distant from our more informal t-shirt and jeans generation. Hilary and I expected to be given a glimpse of the future, but instead we were pleasantly surprised to be taken back in time to a more innocent era.

In 1958 Europe had moved on from the trauma of the recent war and by trade, technology and innovation was creating a new world for her children. In 1958 the world had high hopes. By contrast our world is one of scepticism and fragmentation. The Brussels World’s Fair of 1958 hinted that the world was within reach of the utopia depicted in the science fiction of that time. But the science fiction of today pessimistically puts a great emphasis on the threat of dystopia, societies which are dysfunctional and in decay. Yet there the Atomium stands, glinting in the sunlight, a survivor from more optimistic times, bearing witness that hope need not be abandoned and may yet spring to new life.

“Every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.”

Matthew 13:52

The example of the Atomium may help us to interpret our Lord’s words in Matthew 13, verse 52. Jesus seems to be challenging us to draw on the riches and the hopefulness of our past in order to create a new gleaming symbol of hope in these darker times.

Certainly the life and work of St. Andrews is a harmonious combination of old and new. A church built for the worshipping community of Scots now embraces a multicultural and multinational congregation in a cosmopolitan city. All the treasures of scripture and faithful worship are needed to address the present generation which is rich in technology but poor in hope. The challenge is enormous, but the reward for succeeding is also huge.

Let’s be confident that our Christian heritage, like the Atomium, can still gleam brightly in the new dawn of the postmodern age.

Your friend and locum minister,
Denis Campbell

Dear Friends,

It is a great pleasure for me to introduce myself – minister of the English Reformed Church in Amsterdam – as your interim moderator during the period of vacancy in which you will looking for your next minister. I know some of you quite well already and look forward very much to getting to know more of you. I also know quite a bit about your church having convened the Presbytery’s Local Church Review of the church a couple of years ago, and I and the team who carried out that review were much encouraged at what is going on here at St Andrew’s. I would think that you will not be short of applicants for the post of minister.

A word about my role as interim moderator. I am really a link between you and Presbytery and will endeavour to represent you to them and them to you. I guess I am really overall responsible for ensuring that ministry in the church continues during the vacancy – and that the church hopefully thrives. You will not see that much of me. I am hoping to attend roughly every alternate Kirk Session meeting and I will be keeping up to speed on all that is going on here, but we have already arranged some ‘ locums’: ministers who will come and stay in the manse for a month or two and carry out the duties of minister so that there is some continuity of ministry. I know that you also have a very gifted Kirk Session, a very talented vacancy committee and many very able and enthusiastic members, so you are well resourced for this vacancy.

Last Sunday the passage that was set by the lectionary that many churches follow and that I preached on was 1 Corinthians 12:1-11. Paul there is addressing a church not unlike St Andrew’s – a church set in a cosmopolitan city and with a very diverse congregation. Paul speaks there of how the Holy Spirit gives gifts to the church: ‘to each is given the manifestation fo the Spirit for the common good.’ In other words, under the anointing of the Holy Spirit everyone has something to offer to the church and to the upbuilding of its fellowship. In my experience vacancies can be a time of ‘manifestation of the Spirit for the common good’ – a time when gifts are discovered and expressed which at other times might be hidden or suppressed. At its best a vacancy can be a time of real enrichment and of people ‘coming out of the woodwork’ and finding expression for their gifts. I pray that is the case for St Andrew’s!

I count it a great honour to be your interim moderator and look forward to being a very small part of the next step in the life of this very vibrant church.

Every blessing,

Lance Stone

Dear Friends,

 On 9 September, I announced my demission as minister of St Andrew’s. Since then we have been busy making arrangements with movers, buying a new car and looking for a new home in Dundee. So far, we have made good progress, but there are still a lot of arrangements to make in order to ‘decouple’ in an orderly way from over 14 years of family life in Brussels.

 Bethany and Karalyn will come home for Christmas and Julie will join us as we celebrate our final Christmas in Brussels together as a family and also with the congregation that we have grown to love over the years.

 The Presbytery of International Charges has appointed Rev Dr Lance Stone, minister of the English Reformed Church, Amsterdam, as the Interim Moderator during the vacancy. Lance will work closely with the Kirk Session and the Nominating Committee, guiding them through the recruitment process to find a new minister.

 Please be assured of our prayers during this time.

 Every blessing for the future,

Andrew, Julie, Bethany and Karalyn Gardner

Dear Friends,

It’s hard to believe that we are almost at mid-summer with it’s longer days and warmer weather. Generally, we have been blessed with reasonable weather for the past two months and let us hope that this continues.

During the months of July and August, the pace of life slows down in Brussels; there are fewer cars on the roads (no traffic jams), fewer meetings taking place, children are off from school etc. Generally, people are more relaxed. Some of us will take a holiday in the summer- if circumstances allow us, where we can relax and enjoy a change in routine. It’s during the summer months that we find more time to reflect on the past, the change of pace helps this process. What went well over the past months and what could have gone better?

Personal reflection must be part of the DNA of the Christian’s life- in that we should be referring life events, our activities, our decisions and our attitudes back to the benchmark of our our faith in Christ. I am not saying that disciples of Christ should over analyse everything, but we are called to live distinctively different lives that show integrity and make decisions that reflect the lordship of Jesus Christ over us.

Jesus himself took time to reflect. The gospels describe various moments when Jesus goes off to a quiet place to pray. What did he pray about? If his prayers were anything like ours then he would not only have brought situations of concern before his Heavenly Father, but he would have taken his joys and his frustrations to him as well. Christ’s prayers, like our own, would have been inspired by his personal reflections of his ministry and the relationships that he forged with his apostles and his wider circle of disciples.

There is something else that the quieter summer months allow us to do and that is to plan for the future. The Bible tells the story of God’s saving work for all of creation and human beings are included in his divine endeavor. The Biblical account of forgiveness of sin and redemption from fallenness is described from the book of Genesis through to the book of Revelation. God has a plan and we are a part of it.

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Dear Friends,

Jesus breaks out of the tomb on Easter morning in order to break into out world with resurrection power. The resurrection was the ultimate miracle; the supreme example of the in-breaking of God’s kingdom here on earth. We catch a glimpse of what the fullness of the kingdom will bring to the created order in which we live.

The four gospels spend a disproportionate amount of their time describing the death and resurrection of Jesus the Christ. The evangelists go to great lengths to describe Jesus’ resurrection as an extraordinary event that is part of human history. The gospels describe the resurrection appearances in the garden, the upper room and on the shore of Lake Galilee. It is clear that the resurrected Christ could be seen, touched and heard. He could eat a fish breakfast along with his disciples, yet his new resurrected body could pass through walls and appear in locked rooms.

The resurrection had a huge impact upon his disciples. Before Easter morning they appeared unsure of themselves or Jesus’ teachings. After the resurrection and the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, they communicated the gospel more boldly and spoke about the purpose of Jesus’ ministry with greater clarity. Some of those who heard the message of the apostles’ teaching believed that Jesus of Nazareth was God’s promise Messiah. These believers became the nuclei of the early Church.

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Dear friends,

Last month I attended a conference in Scotland with other ministers. Some were Church of Scotland ministers; others were from the Presbyterian Church of Ireland, while some were from the Free Church of Scotland. A small number of those I had known for a number of years and we met for further fellowship before retiring for the evening. Two of our company attended the same church as Julie and I when we lived in Dundee in the early days of our marriage. I was at the beginning of my studies for ministry; my two friends were undergraduates studying at the University of Dundee. I don’t suppose that in those days we thought we would be meeting together at a conference over twenty years later.  It was good to reminisce about the past and reflect upon the present.

Friendship is important in life and for believers friendships are uniquely enhanced through shared faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and Christian fellowship. I have a long-standing Christian friend and colleague, who has been an important companion and confident through the ups and downs of my Christian life. His advice has always been honest and he and his family have hosted me (and sometimes the family) many times over the years. During that time, we have watched our children grow up, enjoyed occasional family holidays together and been a strong support to one another over the course of our ministries.

During my ministry, I have always made friendships with people in the congregation. Ministers are human beings and they need to forge friendships with people in any congregation they have been called to serve. Making close friendships with a cross-section of the congregation over thirteen years has been an enriching part of my ministry. As time goes on the friendships grow deeper.

When we survey the life of the apostle Paul, we learn something about the friendships that he forged with his co-workers, particularly Timothy, who joined Silas and himself during the early part of the second missionary journey. It is Timothy that Paul sends back to Thessalonica, to find out how the fledgling Church is fairing.  The letter was probably written around the end of 52 AD. In his letter to the Christians in Philippi, Paul commends the ministry of Timothy to the Philippians (Phil 2: 19-24). Almost ten years later, Paul’s confidence in Timothy is undiminished and his friendship with him continues to be strong. He speaks of Timothy with warm affection. Scholars believe that Paul’s final letter, is the pastoral epistle 2 Timothy. This letter could be as late 65 AD, written during Paul’s second imprisonment in Rome, not long before his execution. In places, the letter reads like the apostle’s last will and testament, where he is handing over his ministry to Timothy. From the evidence that we have, Timothy’s friendship was clearly important to Paul.

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Dear friends,

All Saints’ Eve, 2017 will mark the 500^th of the reformer Martin Luther nailing his 95 Theses on the door of Wittenberg Castle Church. This marked the beginning of the Reformation across the continent of Europe. Luther challenged the medieval Church against the practice of payment of Indulgences (a fee for a papal cause) as a means of forgiveness of sin. Through Luther’s study of the scriptures he proposed the theology of forgiveness of sin through justification by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. He was excommunicated from the medieval church for his views on the sacramental theology, scripture, church leadership and structure. However, the ideas of Luther began to take hold in Germany, through the support of the German princes and aided by the recent invention of the printing press. The Reformation of the Church spread throughout Europe through other Reformers, such as John Calvin, who developed Luther’s ideas and was the father of Presbyterianism.

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Dear friends,

Some of you will be aware that two of my sisters emigrated from the United Kingdom to Western Australia nearly 30 years ago now. Over those years the family has grown and changed, just like any other family. Grandparents have passed away, new relationships have been forged and children have been born. In recent times we have enjoyed visits from my sisters and some nieces and nephews, but this time, after a gap of nine years, Julie and I have the opportunity to return to Western Australia this summer. We are blessed to have a large family on the other side of the world.

Our own congregation has many people who have family in different places in the world: that’s the nature of an international community. Some of us are within easy travelling distance from our family, perhaps a few hours by car, but others need to travel to another continent to see them.

It can be difficult being far away from family; particularly as parents get older and knowing what can best be done for them as they become frailer. The good thing today is that we have sophisticated methods of communication such as internet video calls, social media, etc.; all very different from when my sisters left Scotland. In those days, we could look forward to a telephone call or blue airmail letter through the letter box.

Any loving congregation of Christians should be a second family for us. Jesus used the language of family when he spoke to God in Heaven. He referred to God as his ‘Father’ and spoke of himself as his ‘Son’. One intimate word that Jesus used to refer to God in Heaven is ‘Abba’, the Aramaic word that can be translated ‘my Father’. In the Church we extend the language of family to consider other believers as brothers and sisters in the Lord. We can think of fellow believers in the congregation as our brothers and sisters and, similarly, believers in other congregations of the same denomination or from different denominations. This sense of extended family exists between ourselves and the people of Christ Presbyterian Congregation Adentan, with whom we have been twinned for ten years. When Owusu Sarpong and Carol Philips visit Adentan in early July they will meet many brothers and sisters in the Lord, who will welcome them into their Ghanaian church family.

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Dear friends,

On Sunday mornings we have been reflecting on the life of Jesus. We have considered the theological context of his ministry that ‘the word (who) was with God and was God, became flesh and made his dwelling among us’ (i.e. God the Son became human in the life of Jesus of Nazareth). Yet there is also a cultural context to his ministry, which helps us to make sense of him and the world in which he lived.

Judaism, the religious context into which Jesus was born, was as complicated then as it is today and the gospels give us some insight into this. Throughout His ministry, Jesus’ main opponents were the Pharisees. The Pharisees became the guardians of the Old Testament law, after the Jerusalem temple was liberated from the Greeks in 167 BC. Over the years, they developed an oral law in addition to the written law of the Old Testament. By the time Jesus of Nazareth was exercising his ministry, the Pharisees had evolved into different schools, some of which were liberal while other were more conservative. These schools debated the finer points of the Jewish law, particularly on the issues of ritual purity and observation of the Sabbath. Before becoming a Christian, the apostle Paul had been a Pharisee and came from the school of Gamaliel [Acts 22:3]. The Sadducees were often from well to do families of the Jewish elite and their views differed significantly from the Pharisees; Sadducees had no oral law and didn’t believe in the resurrection of the dead. The ruling Jewish Council (the Sanhedrin) was made up of members of these two groups. There was third group within Judaism known as the Essenes who were to be found in the dessert at Qumran, but they also inhabited cities in small numbers. The Essenes believed in regular ritual bathing as part of their cultic practice and the Dead Sea Scrolls are religious writings attributed to them, which have made a huge contribution to modern Biblical scholarship. It is also worth noting that there were also Zealots, who wanted to rise up and liberate Palestine from its Roman occupiers by force if necessary.

So why does it help for us as Christians to understand Jesus’ world? It might be interesting, but what does it contribute to our faith and commitment to Christ?

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Dear friends,

Someone asked me today if I have any ‘big projects’ in the pipeline for 2017. I thought for a moment and answered ‘No:  I don’t have any big projects for 2017’. With our daughters now in full-time education in the UK it is a time in our lives to allow them to pursue their big projects, while we provide a degree of stability. God willing, the vacancy at the Scots Kirk Paris will be coming to an end at the end of March. As interim-moderator this vacancy has been my most recent big-project. There have been moments when the role has required focus, energy and time. However, testing experiences such as this, also provide opportunities for growth. There continues to be a number of vacancies in the International Presbytery and that means that, like many of our colleagues in Scotland, a number of the full-time ministers have been  challenged with additional work.

There are times  when we have to focus on the day in, day out tasks. In ministry this can be pastoral work, preparation for leading worship or Bible studies, administration and being available to the congregation for advice or counsel. These tasks are not big-projects, like the building of a new bridge across the River Forth in Scotland, but are more like the painting of the Forth Rail Bridge: general maintenance work that keeps things in good order.

2017 will see our congregation welcome a visiting team from Presbytery to carry out the five-yearly Local Church Review (LCR). The LCR team will meet the Kirk Session, speak to other office bearers, inspect the properties that the congregation maintain, be present at morning worship and meet the congregation over tea and coffee after the Church service. A lot of documents will be submitted prior to the visit, so that the team can come to Brussels with as full a picture as possible of the work that is done by many people to sustain the life and witness of the congregation.  After the visit, the LCR team will write a report of their findings and help the Kirk Session set goals for the further development of congregational life.

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