IMPORTANT NEWS...

Over the next few days Martin's Memorial Church in Stornoway is to temporarily re-site its worship services to enable a refurbishment that is being undertaken in its main sanctuary. The church, which was built in the 1870’s, will decant to Stornoway Primary for 3 months. This is an exciting development for a church that has seen considerable growth and development in recent times. The catalyst for the refurbishment was a new heating system that has long being planned. The preferred option for the new system proved to be under floor heating. This then led to further considerations of the long term purpose and use of the building. The heart and vision behind the refurbishment is to provide a modern worship space, whilst also providing comfort and flexibility. Rev. Tommy MacNeil, the minister at Martin’s explains, ‘We are very excited about our planned refurbishment. I recently told our congregation that what we are doing is in effect nothing new. Martin’s as a church came into being to reach people with the gospel by making provision for them with more services in English. Thus the purpose of the church was to reach out and bless the community. We are under-taking this refurbishment for the same reasons. We have a heart to reach out and impact our community and a newly refurbished sanctuary will help us to do that.’ Rev MacNeil went on to say, ‘The main purpose of our building is to enable and encourage people in their worship of God. That will continue to be our main priority after the refurbishment. By removing the pews and replacing them with comfortable seats, installing new audio and visual equipment, and with a complete redecoration we will have a much more flexible and user friendly building. Our hope is that this will assist us with our desire for our church to be more of a community resource for conferences, children’s and youth work, and other such meetings. As I heard another minister say, ‘We want to go from being a one day a week service church, to being a seven day a week serving church!’ Our refurbishment will enable us to move towards that vision’. In looking to undertake the work, Martin’s were keen to keep as much of the work as local as possible and are delighted to have secured Alex Murray as the main contractor. With that they have also secured the services of Point 1 Electrical for the installation of the new audio and visual system. With all the plans, the congregation in Martin’s have been tremendous. Rev. MacNeil explains. ‘We recognise that any change in church is challenging for people. In looking to bring about this project we communicated our sense of God’s vision for us as a congregation and for the work He has for us to do. We have a vision of making better provision for our work in the present, and for the generations to come. In response to that, our people have been tremendous. We are grateful to God for every person who is connected with our church in any way, and who continue to support, in many and varied ways, the ongoing work and witness of our congregation!’ During the refurbishment, which starts on Monday 6th of July, Martin’s Memorial will continue to meet for worship on Sunday’s at 11am and 6.30pm, and Wednesdays’ at 7.30pm. They are going to be meeting in Stornoway Primary School on Jamieson Drive with the services starting there on Sunday 5th July. Mr MacNeil stated that it went without saying that a warm welcome would await anyone who would want to join them for worship at any of these services. The Minister, Deacon’s Court, and congregation of Martin’s Memorial would like to put on record their sincere gratitude to Mrs Murray and the staff at Stornoway Primary School for their assistance in allowing us the use of the school during the refurbishment. They would also like to thank the local Presbytery, and the Church of Scotland General Trustees for all of their assistance to date.