The last few weeks Ashley and I have attended St. Machar's Cathedral Church for our Sunday worship. It has been a big change of pace to go from our normal Baptist church to a Church of Scotland Presbyterian Church. The church itself has been on the sight from about the sixth century in one form or another. The building as it stands today has some parts that are from the pre-Reformation time (c. 1560) with most of it being completed in the early 20th century. They have found a Celtic cross on the site that has been possibly dated back to the sixth or seventh century. Tradition has it that St. Ninian came here from St. Columba's monastery on Iona (still an active monastery by the way) as a mission to the Scottish Picks during the sixth century. The church is located just up the hill from the River Don, which is one of the two major rivers that mark out the North and South boundaries of the greater Aberdeen area (the Don is the northern border). It has withstood the religious wars of the Reformation and the following Cromwellian wars, the Jacobite civil wars, and finally WWII. Needless to say, it is very impressive.
What I liked best about the church service was its meditative nature and its focus on prayer. We easily prayed about 20 minutes of the hour long service and had much time to be quiet and reflective upon the Lord. The organ music was great, especially to ears that are used to guitars, drums, and the keyboard. We were also very impressed with the level of hospitality that was evident at the church and Ashley even went last Friday to their toddlers day out even with some of the ladies - Jakey even has a play date with one of the little boys!
Here are some pictures - there is also a video of Jakey playing ball that has no connection to the rest of this blog:
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