An American in Scotland: Dedication Week

Many of you may know that Re:Hope (the church we work at) just bought a church building under a month ago. You may also know that we have spent much of the month of April, updating and renovating parts of the building. However, what you may not know is that this past week at the building was our Dedication Week.

Dedication Week was a week focused on dedicating the building to God for His work by reading the Word and worshipping him. God provided the church building in a miraculous way (see story at Brian's Blog) and we know He plans to use it to further His Kingdom. We created a sign-up for 1 hour slots beginning at 8am Monday morning and allowed attenders of Re:Hope to sign-up for slots to read the Bible. Pastor Brian started us off reading Genesis 1:1 and each hour the person arriving would take over where the last person left off. I signed up for the Tuesday morning, 8am slot and read from the middle of Joshua through Judges 1. It was a glorious, sunny morning and I loved starting my day off reading the Bible at the church!

The unique thing about this time was that each person read the Bible out loud from the pulpit, declaring the words of the Lord over the building. Sometimes the reader was the only one there, but other times, people were round about, either for the purpose of listening or to organe things in the building. We took the nights off and by Friday at about 5pm, the last reader finished up Revelation. There is certainly power in reading God's Word aloud and the church building was bathed in it and set apart for His work. Throughout the week we had 3 short evening worship times in which people came to simple sing songs of worship and praise to our God.

The Bible Reading took place from where Brian is preaching in this picture

Easter Sunday was our first Sunday service in the building and God's presence was there and moving in people's hearts! I can't wait to see all that God is going to do in and through us at this new church home!