shoulder to shoulder

No church can do everything. And no church can support everything.

Much as we might wish it otherwise.

It means we have to prioritise, like everyone else. It means we have to be clear in our minds what it is that the Lord has called us distinctively here both to be and to do.

We've been through that process in terms of our overall vision.

And over the years we've also been able to recognise certain close ties that we have with what are sometimes called 'para-church' organisations. That's to say, specialist ministries which are exercised 'alongside' the life and work of the church.

One of these is the West Pilton Christian Centre, a local 'arm' of the Edinburgh City Mission. Down the years we've built up quite a relationship with the WPCC, not least because it's reasonably local. And not least because it does far better some of the things we'd want ourselves to be doing.

They exercise a wonderful ministry amongst folk who are often very deprived and who often don't really know where on earth they should turn.

We send along food each week from here. Members of the congregation (not enough, I have to say, but some certainly) lovingly and generously bring in food to our halls through the week and on a Sunday; and generally on a Tuesday morning these gifts of food are taken along to the Centre for them to use in the ministry they exercise.

We count it a privilege to be involved in this way in that particular ministry - and view it, in some ways, as our ministry too. Not because we do it (as I say, they do it far better), but because we identify with it in this practical, tangible way.

Tom Kisitu is the man who presently heads it up. He's a delightful, up-beat man, with an infectious love for the Lord, a rippling laugh and a smile as long as Princes Street!

He was along at the local school's Harvest Service this morning. The nursery children and the Primary1s-3s all troop along to the church; and the gifts of food which they've previously brought to school are all displayed at the front. After the service we load them all into the van which the Centre has and get them along the road.

It's good for the children to have some sense of where their food gifts go. So I try and give Tom a chance to speak at the service as well.

Their stocks have been low, so the Centre is grateful for this fresh provision of food. The 'recession' is taking its toll. There's more and more need.

Tom and his team engage in a vital ministry. It's 'specialist' in many ways. It's 'mission' in the broadest sense. But at its heart they share with us a burden for the people of our city, that the gospel should be proclaimed and that Jesus should be known.

They're 'para-church'. We work alongside one another. Shoulder to shoulder stuff.

No church, as I said at the start, can do it all. But we're in it together. The body of Christ.

And together we are able to embody in some small way the ministry of Jesus to our needy world today.