COMMUNITY OUTREACH
Nurture Each Other in Faith
At New Laigh Kirk, we aim to be a hub within the community, that everyone can come to rely on, depend on, and enjoy in every day life. In partnership with this, we also provide different elements of community outreach. With each of our community outreach projects, we aim to bring Jesus to the community and introduce as many as we can to a faithful way of living. Jesus can be found in all aspects of our community and we strive to enhance the work of God in everyone, everywhere.
EACHA
East Ayrshire Churches Homeless Association
Each Person Matters
East Ayrshire Churches Homelessness Action (EACHa) is a charity that was set up to help relieve hardship or distress experienced by people who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless within East Ayrshire.
EACHa (East Ayrshire Churches Homelessness Action) is an ecumenical charity, formed in 2005, with around 20 participating congregations.
The EACHa/Community Friends Action Plan sits within the Celebrate Kilmarnock Town Centre Action Plan. Our town, and the surrounding area, is for everyone, those with disposable income, those in positions of authority, and those with no income, the very poor and vulnerable. For all who live, work, shop and simply enjoy our community. Each person matters. Those in positions of authority must confront and understand the humanity of those whose lives their decisions affect. Those living vulnerable and chaotic lives must do the same. Transformation will only come by all talking to each other, working together. After two conferences and the publication of a hard hitting Action Plan, it is now time for action. The recommendations of the Plan are achievable. There is a will to make the necessary changes to begin to transform the lives of the most vulnerable in our community. Together – professional bodies, agencies, churches, volunteers, partners, staff and citizens– we must work harder and honour the commitment to transform lives now and inspire lasting hope for the future.
ECO-CONGREGATION
New Laigh Kirk are an Eco-Congregation
“Before you finish breakfast this morning, you’ve depended on more than half the world”
Martin Luther King
These words were spoken a generation ago but still demonstrate how our habits affect others globally as the Global South strives to feed the Global North. To support this approach, NLK has achieved a Bronze award status as an eco-congregation.
What is Eco-Congregation? Eco-Congregation is an ecumenical programme helping churches make the link between environmental issues and Christian faith, to respond in practical action in the church, in the lives of individuals, and in the local and global community.
Why are we doing this? As a Congregation, we connect with each other plus others in our community. We also connect with others we do not know or see globally but we do it in a Christian manner that, hopefully, is eco-friendly.
What does this mean? This approach is about how we consider climate and eco-issues as part of our spiritual lives as well as our day to day living. The current cost of living crisis and energy costs have escalated these issues into our day to day living and has an impact on how we look after our homes but also our Church buildings and surrounding areas.
What have we done so far? We continue to support Fair Trade and promote Fair Trade products. In December 2023, we successfully achieved our Bronze status award. This has been a combination of assessing where we are as individuals and as a congregation in terms of spiritual and daily living and how we consider climate issues locally, nationally and globally. Our prayers and worship regularly remind us of the gift of creation.
Through self-assessment work, we have developed our climate efficiencies and embraced suggestions on how we can continue to look after our beautiful sanctuary and other Church buildings, but in a more energy and eco-friendly way for our lighting and heating. A water meter is also being installed to monitor use and we continue to support and encourage recycling where possible.
What can you do? There are steps that individuals can do to promote the work of our eco-congregation. Pray for the issues within our town, our country and our world. Take appropriate steps to reduce carbon footprint where you can. Reduce inefficiencies in our energy use at home and in the church – switch off lights, using heating timers, maximise use of the halls and sanctuary to make the most of the heating and lighting; reduce food waste and landfill.
Over the coming months, the Eco-Congregation will look to provide more information, hints and tips but further information can be found here.
“No individual can live alone, no nation can live alone, and anyone who feels that he can live alone is sleeping through a revolution.”
For more information about Eco-Congregations, Fair Trade and more, please see the links above.
Check out our recent Eco-Congregation flyer here: ECO-FLYER​​​​​​
​
​
Eco Congregation Scotland Bronze Award
We are delighted to announce that New Laigh Kirk, Kilmarnock has been awarded an Eco-Congregation Scotland Bronze Award in recognition of our work and commitment to caring for creation.
The Bronze award recognises that our congregation has met or exceeded Eco-Congregation’s basic standards in spiritual living, practical living and global living, while also addressing some more general aspects or environmental care.
To achieve this award, our congregation had to demonstrate all of the criteria of a Bronze award, as listed in the tables below, in each of the 4 broad areas:
-
General aspects of our Eco congregation work including initiation, coordination, communication, evaluation and planning
-
Spiritual living including our worship and life of the congregation
-
Practical living including what individuals can do at home and action within the Church buildings and grounds.
-
Global living (community, local, national and global concerns).
To gain a Bronze Award, a congregation must show that it has achieved, or made substantial progress toward achieving, all of these criteria.
New Laigh Kirk, has been especially praised by the assessors for our congregation’s impressive work with EACHa (East Ayrshire Churches Homelessness Action).
​
Eco-Congregation Scotland Silver Award
A short update for everyone this month as the eco-committee catches our breath and regroups after a very busy few months planning and submitting for our silver award assessment during the past few months.
At the end of June, we met with our assessors in the last step of our silver award application. And I am delighted to share that we were successful and are now a Silver Award congregation!
​
​
​
​
​
​
Our assessor feedback was extremely positive and as they had visited NLK for our bronze award, they were able to see our journey and what we have achieved since November 2023.
A huge thank you to all our friends of NLK and everyone who has been involved in delivering on our action plan, providing support for our eco, climate and Fair-Trade work over the past few years.
I would also like to provide a personal thank you to the Eco-Congregation Scotland committee members for all of their hard work and support.
Our eco journey has not reached its end. I may have initially intended to go for silver, but our assessment feedback indicated that we are well on way to gold so let’s do this!
Please keep an eye out on our social media, website, bulletin articles and during our worship times, as well as the sanctuary renovation work will all lead to getting gold.
We will continue to work with our organisations; two of our committee members were guests at the Guild’s first summer meeting to share about our silver award work and Fair-Trade. Well done to our two prize winners!
And remember, we all have a role to play in this in our homes, our work and around our church. The Fellowship of Churches is planning a Creation-based celebration service in September as well; please keep an eye on the intimations for details on this.
​Thank you again to everyone who has helped our work during our silver award and I ask for continued support as we carry on towards gold. Let’s do this together and do our bit to save God’s Creation along the way !
​
Spiritual Issues:
All things bright and beautiful
All creatures great and small
All things wise and wonderful
The Lord God made them all
Each little flower that opens
Each little bird that sings
He made their glowing colours
He made their tiny wings
A beautiful hymn that captures our amazing Creation. At NLK, we celebrate our world each week through our Sunday worship and other aspects of our spiritual lives – in prayer or simply being out and about enjoying the world around us. We also recognise the challenges locally, nationally and globally and will also pray for those in turmoil and distress due to famine, drought and war.
NLK was delighted to welcome the Fellowship of Churches and representatives from local primary schools to share our experience, learning and commit to further action within the eco and climate change agenda. Young people from Onthank Primary School and Loanhead Primary School showcased and talked about their work in school. Both schools, alongside Annanhill Primary School, held a poster competition in school, with books provided as thanks and well done to some of the pupils. The posters were then used in a fantastic poster display within the sanctuary.
Well done to all of the young people who took part.​​​​​
​
Our Eco-Congregation
Scotland Journey
Dates for your diary:
Harvest Sunday – last Sunday in September
Fair Trade fortnight – 22nd September to 5th October 2025
NLK Community Autumn litter pick – 5th October 1.30-3pm​
​
Global concerns:
Our Fair Trade stall was present for the Kilmarnock Christmas Light switch on in December and included produce, goods and information for people to buy and learn about the work of Fair Trade.​
Local, community and national concerns – below is a list of some local websites that may help.
East Ayrshire Churches Homeless association (EACHa) - EACHa - Each Person Matters
Recovery Hub East Ayrshire Recovery -Network Recovery Support in East Ayrshire (earecoverynetwork.co.uk)
The Trussell Trust Food banks: 23 Riverbank Place, Kilmarnock and 15 Shortlees Crescent, Kilmarnock
Clean Green Ayrshire: Clean Green East Ayrshire · East Ayrshire Council (east-ayrshire.gov.uk)
International concerns: Christian Aid: About us Scotland -Christian Aid
​
Practical living as an Eco-friendly congregation:
We continue to promote Eco-living in the following ways:
-
We have increased our recycling capacity in the halls with the help of our church officer.
-
We have shared food with our community.
-
We continue to minimise our food waste.
-
We continue to support Fair Trade.
-
We continue to thank God for our world and His Creation.
​​
Individual members: our eco-congregation work is not only limited to the life within the church and our Church buildings but also connects with all of us outside of NLK. There is so much that each one of us can do that can have a wonderful positive impact on our beautiful world. Earth Hour and Earth Day may be global initiatives, but by participating, you are helping to make a difference. This year, Earth Hour focused not just on switching off the lights in our homes but encouraged us to do spend the hour doing something for your community.
We had a fantastic turnout of NLK friends, families and representatives from the Junior and Company Section of the 4/5th Boys’ Brigade to help with our first ever community litter pick. We had so many volunteers that we were able to clean the whole town centre before returning to the sanctuary for a welcome hot drink and Fair Trade treat.
​
Action in our Church buildings: our halls now have dedicated bins for recycling purposes – paper, plastic and general waste. All of our hall users are encouraged to separate out waste in both the upper and lower halls using the new bins.
Part of the renovation work will be to install more energy efficient lighting and heating – please keep an eye out for update on this as the work progresses.
We have already started to use unbleached recycled paper for the Orders of Service on a Sunday. Any that are left over in the sanctuary are recycled. We encourage every household that has access to a blue bin for waste paper to recycle their orders of service too.
Gardens and Biodiversity – this is something that we can all help. Our Ignite children and leaders were able to help a poorly bee in the halls recently by providing a sugary drink and allowing it to escape back into the world feeling much happier!
Helping the bees can be done in our own homes as well. Springtime brings new life to our gardens and the world around us; do you have flowers in the garden that can be attractive to bees, butterflies and other insects? Can the bees get pollen from your garden plants?
​Our church yard continues to support flower pots and different plants depending on the time of year. This is our autumn pot being planted on the same day as our litter pick:
What else can we all do outside of our Church walls?
Recycle: We can maximise our recycling or repurpose articles of clothing or household goods that may still have life in them. EACHa may be able to make use of bedding, towels, kitchen wear etc to avoid going to landfill but also will help transform a starter home for someone in need.
Reduce waste: recycling our clothing and household items also reduces what goes to waste and/or landfill.
CO2 emissions: each one of us can consider when and how we use our cars or vehicles. Can we car share to Church or any of the organisations or when you meet up with friends? Do we need to take the car? Can we walk instead?
We are surrounded by green spaces in the town and can enjoy them on foot for those who are able.
Gardens and Biodiversity: One of our Trekkers kids as made his own bird feeder in school – perfect to help the birds during the colder weather:
​As we move in to spring and summer, consider planting up some garden pots with flowers and plants that will encourage bees, butterflies and other insects to visit. As well as brightening up your garden, this will them to visit and ​harvest pollen. Other things to consider adding to your garden are bee or insect hotels.​​
Please continue to support the eco-congregation work by supporting our efforts to be more energy efficient in the Church buildings and at home if possible. Please also be encouraged to recycle our paper and plastic waste in the Church, halls and at home.
For more energy saving tips, please see the links below.
-
Ten Tips for saving energy in your church and home. (ecocongregationscotland.org)
-
Clean Green East Ayrshire · East Ayrshire Council (east-ayrshire.gov.uk)
Elaine Paton
On behalf of the Eco-congregation Committee
SCHOOLS
As part of our family outreach work, our Family and Community support worker, Amy, and parish minister, David, currently make regular visits to primary schools within the community. These visits can entail assembly talks, lunch clubs, after school clubs, parent council work and educational support.
As of January 2023, New Laigh Kirk are involved with Loanhead Primary School, Annanhill Primary School and Onthank Primary School, working alongside all children from primary 1 through primary 7.
Bible led lunch clubs are ran within the schools, introducing the different age groups to the stories of the Bible and diving deeper into the meaning of living a life with Jesus. We encourage group participation, discussion, interactive games, crafts and even celebrations to build the faith of children within the schools.
We love visiting the schools for assembly talks, where we can build on the school's themes of the week and tie these into a Bible story that we can make come alive with whole school participation.
PASTORAL CARE GROUP
Belonging to a church means being part of a church family who care about one another’s well-being. Our Pastoral Care Group helps everyone in our church family to feel connected to our church and supports anyone who feels isolated or in need of a little extra support at a tough time in their life. We do this in several ways.
· Every month we send a friendly newsletter to people on our mailing list.
· We keep in touch by phoning people or, if they prefer, by visiting them in their homes or in residential care.
· With our minister we host occasional Silver Sunday afternoon worship in the church, with door to door transport provided if required. These services are shorter than Sunday morning services. They are followed by tea, coffee and home baking, with an opportunity to chat to friends whom they don’t meet often.
· Seasonal events such as a Daffodil Tea and a Christmas afternoon tea are held in our halls, with entertainment and home baking!
· With our church’s Revive team we help to link up our young and older generations.
These activities can keep you in touch with what’s happening in our church. If you want to be on our mailing list, our Pastoral Care Convenor, Barbara Graham, will be pleased to hear from you. Contact Barbara at barbara.graham74@btinternet.com or phone 01563-522108.
Pastoral Care volunteers benefit too from offering these activities. We’ll be glad to hear from anyone who can help by making visits or phone calls, delivering letters, driving our guests to events, baking, singing, playing the piano – and above all simply by being a friend to members of our church family. If you would like to volunteer with the Pastoral Care Group, please contact the above email or telephone number.
REVIVE
The Revive Group is stemmed from our church's Learning Communities Group. The Learning Communities training gave some of the members in our church an opportunity to think clearly about certain types of outreach our church could develop. From this, a small group of volunteers have shown rapid growth in community outreach and have established connections with our pastoral care group, schools and social work and have developed links into the heart of the community.
The Revive Group are responsible for the intergenerational link between the youth in our church and our pastoral care teams. In 2022, Revive created both summer and autumn worship events which brought together children and youth within our church and the community, and members of the pastoral care team to come together and worship Jesus through a variety of musical worship styles, food and friendship. These events also helped to connect members of our 'Pen Pal Project' together; children and elderly who were able to write to one another as pen pals over the winter season.
Revive also run a weekly baby and toddler group, 'Little Seeds' for any and all parents with children ages 0-4. Parents and or carers are welcome to come along to our Church halls on Tuesday mornings from 10am-11am to enjoy a coffee, tea and small snack and a variety of snacks and refreshments for little ones too. Here, parents can depend on the warm friendship and kind support of the Revive group members as they encourage discipleship and faith in different ways, whilst little ones have the freedom to play and engage in interactive activities and led music time.
For three years in a row, the Revive group also ran a 'Backpack Project'. This involved encouraging members of our church and community to donate money, or backpacks and school supplies that were collected and distributed between the local community social work system and to local primary and secondary schools for families who could benefit from some extra support on the run up to the new school term starting.
​
​