The videos from the Adoption Conference that we held in March are now available:
Additional resource: What the Church needs to know about Trauma
Adoption Conference
On Saturday 4th March we held a conference entitled ‘Adoption and the Church’, with the intention of helping us be better prepared as a church to welcome adopted children into our midst.
We began the day with a talk from Rev. Peter Loughridge (North Edinburgh RPCS) about the glorious doctrine of Adoption in Bible - how as Christians we are not simply justified (declared righteous), but welcomed into God’s family.
Peter’s wife Emma then spoke about their experience of raising two adopted daughters, as well as practical ways a church can welcome adopted children.
After a buffet lunch, Barbara Ogston (wife of a local Church of Scotland minister who works for Adoption UK), spoke about their experience of adoption, as well as the particular challenges that children with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder can have.
The conference finished with a question panel where those in attendance had the opportunity to ask questions of the three speakers.
We hope to have videos from the talks at available shortly on our YouTube page.
We are grateful to Trinity, Hamish and Campbell for coming along and putting on some activities for the children during the talks.
Adoption and the Church
We are planning to host a conference on Saturday 4th March on the subject of ‘Adoption and the Church’. It is open to everyone and all details are below:
Stephen contributes to new (old!) book
Our minister, Rev. Stephen Steele, has contributed a historical introduction to the republication of a book by 19th century Reformed Presbyterian Thomas Houston. The book is on the subject of Adoption and has been described by Joel Beeke as ‘unduly neglected’ and superior to all other books on the topic written in the same century.
Originally published in 1872 (and then again in 1876), it has now been republished by Ettrick Press and is available to buy from their website. Stephen completed his MA thesis on Houston in 2009 and has previously contributed an article on him to the Reformed Theological Journal (2010), as well as the chapter about Houston in the 2016 book Preachers of the Covenants.
The new book also has a preface by Rev. Ian Macleod, originally from Scotland but currently ministering in Grand Rapids. You can download a sample of the book here.