Vocations

Vocation

Dear Friends,

I hope you’ve enjoyed our tours through Esther and Daniel in recent weeks; neither are books we hear much from in the weekly round of readings we most often use in church so I hope you found them interesting, puzzling, and intriguing.  

Over the next week we will hear from students and tutors at the Scottish College (Congregational & United Reformed) – one of three colleges in the URC which trains and equips people for ministry.  

The Scottish College dates back 1811 when Scottish Congregationalists founded a theological hall to train men (sadly in those days only men) for the ministry.  The Hall become a College when the Congregational Union united with the Evangelical Union in 1896.  In the 1920s it trained Eric Liddell (of Chariots of Fire fame) for missionary work in China and later in the twentieth Century its students trained alongside United Free and, later, Scottish Episcopal Church ordinands – a link that remains today.

Students train for stipendiary and volunteer ministry including the new NSM Model 4 form of service where the ordinand is trained to go back into their local context and serve as a minister. 

This evening we welcome two new students into the College who join three existing ordinands.  They, alongside their tutors, ponder the mystery that is call in this week’s series of Devotions.  

With every good wish

Andy

The Rev’d Andy Braunston
Minister for Digital Worship