News

BAUGH NEWS for details of this development project • click here

MOVING CHURCH • April 2008
Over the past few years there has been much talk of selling one
of the two church buildings we have. In recent weeks a decision has been made by the fellowship to sell the smaller church at Balemartine and to extend and renovate the church ar Baugh. This location has the advantage of being more central, being on the 'main' road from Scarinish to Crossapol and having more open space around it.

The decision to renovate Baugh has been taken after a long period
of consultation with all members of the fellowship. During this time, which involved personal visits and an opportunity to offer views and opinions using a questionnaire and at open meetings, many aspects of our future church life were considered. These covered the building, youth work and teaching, links with the community
and outreach opportunities.

A management team has been established to carry this project forward. The BMT (Baugh Management Team) has been asked
to met regularly and to make positive progress.

NEW TEACHING RESOURCES • June 2008
The website has recently been given additional facilities. It is
now possible to download teaching resources - sermons and
notes - from the inside the bible page. Peter's sermons are
now recorded on minidisc and made available as MP3
downloads with notes available as PDF documents.

IAN STACKHOUSE VISIT • 17 August 2008
We welcomed Ian and his family to our church this morning. Although the family are on their first holiday to Tiree, Ian had agreed to speak at our family service. Ian is Senior Pastor at
Millmead Baptist Church in Guildford.

BAUGH CHURCH • August 2008
We will be welcoming two more visitors to the island in the next couple of weeks - to help with our proposed re-development and move to Baugh Church. Graham Collings is an independent fundraising consultant who will be visiting on 26 and 27 August to begin the process of helping us to plan the financial aspects of this project. In addition, we are expecting a visit from Ray Davis, an architect who has a great deal of experience in developing churches and who will make a preliminary visit to the island in the next few weeks. These two visits mean that the project is 'on the blocks' and ready to progress.

BAPTIST UNION OF SCOTLAND VISIT • November 2008
We have recently had a visit from Bill Slack (General Director)
and Norman McNeish (Finance Director). As part of their programme of review visits to churches we were delighted to be able to share our plans for Baugh Church. They were both very excited about the redevelopment plans and offered practical and financial support.

MORE PLANS & MORE MEETINGS • February 2009
At the beginning of February the whole fellowship met to discuss the very latest plans for the development of Baugh Church. These plans had a lot more detail - and were the result of several consultations with the Project Group, the architect and the plannig department.
The plans incorporate lots of felexible space which will have a variety of community and church uses - and will be a great asset to the island. There will more meetings - and more plans - but we seem to be making steady progress towards a start day for the re-development.

CHRISTIANITY EXPLORED • February 2009
For some time we have been considering starting an enquirers group - to give folk an opportunity to explore the Christian faith and to ask some important questions. We will meet for six weeks initially and each session will begin with a simple meal - a chance to get to know each other better - and an opportunity to talk over issues from the previous week. There will then be a short video, which looks at a different aspect of the Christian faith each week. This will be followed by a time of discussion in a small group, where everyone will be welcome to contribute their opinion, ask questions and discuss with the rest of the group. The emphasis will be upon exploration and discovery in arelaxed and informal environment. We hope to start
later this month. To find out more about this course click here.

CHRISTIANITY EXPLORED • April 2009
We completed the first six sessions before the school holidays
began. The opportunity to discuss some of the fundamentals of our faith was at times difficult and challenging - but greatly rewarding.
Everyone who attended has come away with more to think and pray about - and a desire to complete the last four sessions - which will
be after the holiday.

We were sorry to loose Stephen Kemp who moved, with his family, to the Dumfries area to develop some new business ideas.

SUMMER • 2009
We continued to be blessed by the visitors who joined our fellowship throughout the summer, some new folk and some returning friends from many different parts of the mainland.

The SHORELINE exhibiton at Blue Beyond was a great success. All sixty paintings were sold and all the money raised went towards the costs of the Baugh project.

WINTER• 2009/2010
There were a number of important meetings held to discuss the developing plans for the Baugh project. As a fellowship, we adopted
a new constitution, bringing us closer to other Baptist churches throughout Scotland.

SPRING • 2010
A new prayer group has been added to the two established groups which already meet on a Tuesday evening. Derek and Ishbel will be hosting the new group in their home at Scarinish.

Two important meetings have been held recently to discuss the sale
of Balemartine Church building. Both meetings were informal and provided an opportunity for open discussion on this important issue. After much discussion it was agreed, by a very large majority of the membership, that we should proceed with the sale of Balemartine Church building. It was felt that this would be a step of faith towards the development of the Baugh site. In the meantime, from the beginning of September, the fellowship will meet in An Talla - our community hall - for all our main services, prayer meetings and
family meals and events.