Currie Kirk

16/05/2026

The Church of Scotland
Balerno linked with Currie

17th May — Joint Service in Balerno Parish Church at 10.00 a.m.
Led by Rev Roy Henderson.

“When Jesus had said this, as they were watching,
he was lifted up,
and a cloud took him out of their sight.” (Acts 1.9)

With Pentecost Sunday coming soon, we pause with the disciples and Jesus’ mother Mary. Jesus has gone from our sight, hidden by the cloud that is ever the Biblical word picture for the hidden presence of God. Not for followers of Jesus pinpoint knowledge of ‘every day and hour’ of God’s plan in this world, but rather loving faith that the Spirit of God will come to guard and guide, a helper, an advocate and empower.

We live by faith, hope and love, not sight or certainty.

Out of our sight, Jesus is praying for us all. Breathe.

O God,
you withdraw from our sight
that you may be known by our love:
help us to enter the cloud
where you are hidden,
and surrender all our certainty
to the darkness of faith
in Jesus Christ, Amen.
(Janet Morley)

Christ our lover
to whom we cling:
as you have reached our depths
and drawn us to love you,
so make us open, freely to let you go;
that you may return with unexpected power
to change the world through us,
in your name, Amen.
(Janet Morley)

02/05/2026

Coffee Stop! We're back!
Currie Kirk, 2 - 4pm every Saturday from today until end September. All welcome.

29/04/2026

We are looking for someone to work with us over the summer holidays to organise a holiday club session once a week in Currie and Balerno. This will be around 8 - 10 hours a week for 8 weeks. This person should already have experience of running a holiday club/messy church and hold the relevant PVG certificate. If you're interested please get in touch 🙏

25/04/2026

Balerno linked with Currie Church of Scotland

April 26th - The Fourth Sunday of Easter – John 10.1-10

Balerno Parish Church – 09.30am
Currie Kirk – 11.15am

Christ the Shepherd

This Sunday, we continue our celebration and exploration of the Resurrection of Christ.
Here, in the Gospel of John chapter 10 we meet Jesus who is presented to us as both the Shepherd and the Gate to the Sheepfold.

In this life, trust is hard won and easily lost. We are all capable of betraying the trust of another. At some time or another many of us will have been let down or hurt in ways that lead to the loss of trust.

The claim made in today’s Gospel message is that the voice of Jesus is to be trusted. He is no thief or robber, but the Noble Shepherd who laid down his life for others. Such love is to be trusted. Nothing can separate us from it. He is the living embodiment of the trustworthiness of the Lord as found in the 23rd Psalm. “The Lord is my shepherd …”

Holy Shepherd,
you know your sheep by name
and lead us to safety through the valleys of death.
Guide us by your voice,
that we may walk in certainty and security
to the joyous feast prepared in your house,
where we celebrate with you forever. Amen.

(Source of Prayer - Vanderbilt Divinity Library
Source of Picture - Swanson, John August, 2010, Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Art in the Christian Tradition)

22/04/2026

16/04/2026

Balerno linked with Currie
April 19th - 3rd Sunday of Easter

Joint Service of Worship
10.00 am Currie Kirk

‘On the Road to Emmaus’

With presentation from Fresh Start:
https://www.freshstartweb.org.uk/

Living God
Who raises us to life in Christ.
our companion on the way.
Open the eyes of our hearts
to his elusive presence;
In deep conversation,
hospitality shared,
wounds healed,
and In bread broken; amen.

Fresh Start is an Edinburgh based charity helping people who have been homeless get established in their new home.

11/04/2026

Balerno linked with Currie Church of Scotland

The Second Sunday of Easter - John 20:19-31

April 12th 2026
Balerno Parish Church – 09.30 a.m.
Currie Kirk - 11.15 a.m.

After the darkness and light of Holy Week we are now in the season of Easter.
A ‘great Sunday’ between now and Pentecost.

A time to celebrate moments of recognition as Jesus becomes present to his disciples and friends. Moments when the Good Shepherd calls his own by name and makes himself known to them.

In the garden of grieving, in the locked room of fear, Mary and the disciples experience the ‘peace that the world cannot give’. Grief-stricken Mary says, ‘I have seen the Lord’.
Fearful disciples, say, ‘We have seen the Lord’.

Courageous Thomas, who was not in hiding with the other disciples when Jesus showed himself to them says, ‘unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where
the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.’

‘Doubting Thomas’ we often call him, but If this is doubt, then what exactly is being doubted?” Is it scepticism about the resurrection? That would be understandable.
Who hasn’t or wouldn’t harbour such questions?

Yet it is Christ’s wounds that Thomas inspects. Perhaps, if Dietrich Bonhoeffer was correct, and ‘only a suffering God can help’, then Thomas needs to know that:

this Way has truly led through the cross,
this Truth has truly known the power of lies,
this Life that has truly gone down into death,
this Light has truly entered the darkness and not been overcome …

Brave, questioning Thomas had to know that Jesus had truly been wounded. Only then could he trust the offer of peace. The peace of Christ. a peace deeper than even this world’s losses and hurt. Not so much the absence of pain, but a road through it, a transformation.

God of Good Friday and Easter Sunday,
as Jesus went down into the depths for us all,
even death on a cross;
so we bring you our hurts, our losses and our scars,
we bring them to be transformed
by the grace of our wounded, risen Lord who says:
“Peace be with you”. Amen.

10/04/2026

From the Steering Group

Name of United Charge - YOUR CHURCH NEEDS YOUR VOTE!

At the moment the name of the linked charge is: ‘Balerno linked with Currie’. A new name is required for the united charge.

The Steering Group, which meets fortnightly, is systematically working its way through the many issues arising from the forthcoming union of Balerno Parish Church and Currie Kirk.

One issue on which we would very much like your help on is that of the name of the united Church. The name must include: -

• a geographical reference (city/town/village);
• an additional name to identify the congregation within that location; and
• the words "Church of Scotland".

Using our imagination an example of the above might be, e.g. ‘Edinburgh Upper Water of Leith Church of Scotland’.

We are sure there will be many good ideas, so please send your suggestion(s) to the appropriate Church Office, either in writing or by email to
[email protected]
or [email protected]
It would be helpful if all suggestions were to hand by 20th April after which you will have an opportunity to vote on them.

Prayer
Living, loving God,
who raises us to new life in Jesus;
Breath your life into our churches in Currie and Balerno,
call us by a new name into a fresh awareness of our purpose,
so that as faith and life cross paths,
many may come to believe, to belong, to grow and to serve.
We pray in the name of Jesus
the Good Shepherd who calls us by name, Amen.

05/04/2026

He is risen!
Come and join us at the joint service of Currie and Balerno in Balerno Parish Church this morning at 10am...

05/04/2026

'Easter'
Rise heart; thy Lord is risen. Sing his praise
Without delays,
Who takes thee by the hand, that thou likewise
With him mayst rise:
That, as his death calcined thee to dust,
His life may make thee gold, and much more just.

Awake, my lute, and struggle for thy part
With all thy art.
The cross taught all wood to resound his name,
Who bore the same.
His stretched sinews taught all strings, what key
Is best to celebrate this most high day.

Consort both heart and lute, and twist a song
Pleasant and long:
Or since all music is but three parts vied
And multiplied;
O let thy blessed Spirit bear a part,
And make up our defects with his sweet art.

I got me flowers to straw thy way:
I got me boughs off many a tree:
But thou wast up by break of day,
And brought’st thy sweets along with thee.

The Sun arising in the East,
Though he give light, and th’East perfume;
If they should offer to contest
With thy arising, they presume.

Can there be any day but this,
Though many suns to shine endeavour?
We count three hundred, but we miss:
There is but one, and that one ever.