Parish Profile
Serving Him Together
“Love your neighbour as you love yourself.”
We have developed several means of meeting the needs of older people. These include:
- ‘Thursday for Coffee’ in Cross House;
- a monthly knitting group;
- The Sunshine Singers and Sunshine Helpers who interact with inpatients at the local St Michael’s Hospital;
- Leading dementia-sensitive worship monthly at Linlithgow Care Home;
- The monthly Sunshine Sing-Along in the church hall attracts over 50 people living with memory loss and carers, for a light lunch and community singing for memory.
The Guild, with 50 members, meets fortnightly and is very active.
The Society of Friends of St Michael’s, founded in 1942 and with members drawn from the congregation, the parish and wider afield, has supported many improvements to the church building. The minister is an honorary member of the committee of the Society.
We encourage members to engage in social justice work. St Michael’s people are very involved in the West Lothian Foodbank and in Bethany Christian Trust’s Edinburgh winter shelter. We co-founded Linlithgow YoungPeople’s Project with St John’s evangelical church in 1991, and continue to support the Project. We also seek to provide information about local and national services via the dedicated website www.helpcentre.org.uk. Community groups use our buildings for events ranging from civic events and professional concerts to AA group meetings.
Our connections with the church worldwide have been enriched by relationships with Holy Family Church in Reineh, Nazareth and Eunpha Church in South Korea. Members support a mission family in Japan who have direct family connections with our congregation. We engage in activities such as Souper Sunday and writing Christmas cards for prisoners of conscience. Several young people from the congregation have been supported in voluntary work overseas. St Michael’s people lead local fundraising for Christian Aid.
Amid so much activity, one challenge lies in the on-going work of building deeper fellowship. We are in the process of re-establishingelders’ support groups, aiming to increase relational skills. A wider challenge is to involve young people in service, whether as recipients or in delivery of care.