CHRISTIAN VIEWPOINT: Each handprint represents someone connected with the church
Karen Halkett was helping laminate brightly coloured handprints when I went to chat with her. She and her husband Robbie are the co-pastors of Trinity Life Church (formerly Inverness Christian Fellowship) which meets in what used to be Trinity Church of Scotland in Huntly Place.
Each handprint represents someone connected with the church, an individual known and cared for. Trinity Life and its charitable arm TLC Inverness aims, says Karen, to help meet people’s physical, emotional and spiritual needs. She describes the weekly ‘Brew and Blether’ where anyone can drop in for a chat, the Baby Bliss sessions, Trinity Tots, the plans for the future.
I’m impressed by Karen and Robbie’s commitment, especially as Robbie’s pastoral role and sermon preparation comes on top of his demanding day job with the Highland Council. ‘We gave our lives to this,’ Karen says simply.
They are careful to make time when they can simply enjoy being together, and individual time for daily personal connection with God. But their lives are full-on, utterly committed to the loving God who knows intimately not only our handprints but our deepest selves.
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They care for people because Jesus cared for people, and said ‘whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it for me’. They care for people because they love people, with no strings attached, no expectation that those they help will come to Christian faith.
But I suspect some will realise that God’s handprints are much in evidence at Trinity, and that the love shown there is an expression of the love of this Jesus who calls the very least of us ‘sister’, ‘brother’.
Karen’s faith seems vibrant, living, down-to-earth. She talks about seeking to live ‘in the moment’ in a spirit of deep gratitude. She describes her conviction that God, ‘the same yesterday and today and forever’ still at times intervenes miraculously.
Yet she is honest about the challenges and struggles she’s faced, including the isolation and loneliness of a prolonged period of voice loss, and long years of chronic pain following the birth of her third son. She describes crying out in the words of Psalm 13: ‘Lord, will you forget me for ever?’ Resolving to ‘trust in God’s unfailing love’ she realised ultimately that God had been all the time present with her.
Trinity Life is a Pentecostal Church. There is a slight Highland reserve, but even so there’s an exuberance in the worship, a sense of the reality of God, a dancing in the heart.
Across Huntly Place the River Ness flows strongly. I think of the river of God, refreshing, nourishing, challenging, giving hope to the tender growth of this new church by the riverside.
