Drumchapel: Rev Gordon Thomson. Give thanks for our pastor and his commitment to proclaim the Gospel and reach out in to the community - as well as for the many contacts he has built up. Pray also for his wife Janice and their children.

Gordon is now on sabbatical so please pray as he seeks God’s will for the projects he plans to undertake. His text for this period will be "be still and know that I am God". Give thanks for lay preachers and visitors who will be taking our services in his absence.

Give thanks to God for a number of new people coming into the Church over the past year and getting involved in our children’s work and contributing food to our tea and coffee times after fellowship.

Please pray for our outreach work among the children and youth: we have had great times at our AWANA club for primary school children - average attendance 25 children per week. During this term a number have asked Jesus into their hearts and for God to protect them. A parents’night was held recently and a number of parents came for games, followed by great food!

Our youth work is going very well and, following morning worship, a group meet for music teaching and practice.

We continue to undertake open air, door to door work and meet with the youngsters out on the streets. Again, we would value prayer as we seek to make Jesus known in the community which is very open to us.

We have very good reason to rejoice in the Lord at Dumbarton Baptist Church in past months, though we had to acknowledge the end of a number of ministries that have proved their place over the years; and new shoots are already sprouting in their place.

Just under two years ago, after a lengthy period of exploring a way forward, the church embarked on a new project - "Oasis" - a pop-in prayer ministry. Where our old book shop was situated has been revamped and transformed into a very comfortable 3-part 'lounge' area where tea/coffee and, more importantly, friendship and prayer is on offer.

Though this has proved to be an real encouragement for those serving in 'Oasis', as well as for the wider church, this work has admittedly been slower in reaching the community than we'd first anticipated, though developments are now underway that may well alter this. Only last month we commissioned a Parish Nurse - a member of the church family who has the skills, the contacts, and the time (one day a week) to offer her services to the wider witness and pastoral ministry of the church, conveniently through our pop-in prayer lounge 'Oasis’. We are hoping to expand on this with the provision of a church counsellor sometime shortly.

We have also just finished running a very encouraging course of Alpha suppers where God's saving grace was made abundantly evident during our Holy Spirit Day. Our 'Alpha team' is already contemplating building on this as we continue to see a slow but sure trickle of new faces coming along on Sundays and settling with us.

Like many smaller churches we have no 'young' couples and very few children at the moment so we would value, very much, your prayers for the work that is presently going into encouraging the existing teachers and exploring possibilities for forming some kind of 'families ministry.'

Please join us in giving thanks to God for His goodness toward us. The general feeling right now is that we are a 'growing inwardly' church that lives in the hope of becoming a 'growing outwardly' church.

Dumfries: Youth Pastor Marcus Scotney. Our Senior Pastor, Alan Donaldson, moved on at the end of March to take up his new post as General Director of the Baptist Union of Scotland. Please pray for Alan and Ruth and family, that they would quickly settle into their new job, home, schools and community respectively.

As we are now a church in vacancy, we give thanks for Deans Buchanan, our Interim Moderator, and ask for wisdom for our Search Committee as they set about identifying a new Senior Pastor. We would also value prayer for our church secretary, the deacons and worship leaders, all of whom are taking on extra responsibilities at this time. We thank God for His faithfulness over the years as we look forward with expectancy and hope to the future He has planned for us.

Duncan Street: Rev Mark Schenk. We praise the Lord for who He is, what He’s done, what He’s doing and what He will do.
We thank the Lord for His Word - and as a fellowship we can testify to the fruit that His Word produces in the lives of His people as it is faithfully proclaimed, listened to and lived out.
We thank the Lord for His unfailing promises which we stand on - and in the midst of us having faced a number of bereavements and a number of our families moving overseas; we firmly rest in God’s sovereignty.
Thank the Lord with us for all the folk in the fellowship who devote so much time to serving the Lord; and pray that over the quieter summer months the Lord would refresh and energise us for the coming ministry year as we continue to strive to glorify Him in all that we do.

Dundee Central: Revs Jim Turrent and Angus Morrison. These are exciting, encouraging and also challenging days at Central Baptist. With our building approaching capacity each Sunday and a growing vision to reach our city, at a recent church conference, we sensed the leading of God to plant two new churches within the next 5 years at Carnoustie and in Lochee.

Alongside this we are looking to reshape our discipleship programme and look at the possibility of opening of a ‘Cafe Central’ to make connections at the heart of the city.

Facing such challenges we would really value the prayerful support of our Baptist family.

Dunfermline West: Rev Douglas Whyte. Two bereaved families would appreciate prayer: the Wyse family, who lost their father Joe (our member), and Andy & Nancy Taylor, who lost Andy’s mum Brenda. There are also two projects that require prayerful consideration. First the restructuring of our own children’s work (The Junior Church and the Good News Club) to cater for a larger age range, and, secondly, the City Centre Café Project, which will hopefully get off the ground over the summer months, and our own involvement in this however small or large.

Dunoon. We thank God for great encouragement in recent months:-

for several new faces, both young and old(er); for continuity in preaching and teaching, both on Sundays and in Housegroups; for Rev Hugh McConnachie, who has been a great help with pastoral visitation; for the re-opening of the Coffee Shop by two of our members; for a real sense of anticipation about the future, that God is in control.

Please pray:- that we won't run ahead of God in our planning; that He will lead our Vacancy Committee to the pastor of His choice for Dunoon; that workers will volunteer for needy areas, especially Sunday School; for several of our congregation who are infirm or suffer from long-term illness and for newcomers to the area who are looking for work.

Dunrossness: Rev Dr Ian Thomson. We’re excited about what the Lord is doing among us in Dunrossness. We continue to see a steady lowering of the average age of our Church family, with more young families choosing to journey with us. We would be really grateful for your prayers for us as we do our best to integrate those families into the life of the Church.

Like many other Churches, our ‘paper membership’ does not accurately reflect what’s happening in the Church, and we remain concerned about an apparent indifference to the blessings of baptism and a reluctance to become Church members. At the same time, we are deeply grateful for the contribution that this large group makes to the life of the Church.

The end-to-end renovations of our premises are complete after many thousands of hours of voluntary labour from within the Church family, and we’re really enjoying the comfort of a sanctuary that’s ‘fit for purpose’ in the 21st century.

A newly introduced feature into the work of the Diaconate is the idea of Deacons’ Reflection Evenings - when we do what the term suggests! We focus purely on the spiritual side of the work of the Church, and reflect together on where we have come from, on where we are, and on where we believe the Lord is leading us to. These are proving to be excellent occasions.

We have a strong sense of family within our Church, and we are grateful for the prayers of that Scotland-wide larger family that we know as the Baptist Union

August