Balerno Parish Church

26/04/2026

Be Part of Something Joyful

Balerno Parish Church Praise Band!
We are excited to bring the praise band back to life, and we would love you to be part of it. This was once a much-loved part of our Sunday services, adding energy, variety, and a real sense of joy to our worship, and now we’re ready to build it again.
Whether you sing, play an instrument, or simply love music, there’s a place for you here. You don’t need to be an expert or have years of experience, what matters most is your enthusiasm, your willingness to get involved, and your desire to help create something uplifting for others.
If you enjoy making music and sharing that joy with others, you’ll fit right in.
This is a wonderful opportunity to meet new people, grow in confidence, and be part of a supportive and creative group within the church.
If this sounds like something you’d enjoy, or if you’d just like to find out more, we’d love to hear from you. Please get in touch with Don MacLeod ([email protected]) or Martin Petty ([email protected]).

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

Please think about coming to this event, open to everyone.

22/04/2026

The Good Book Group
Following on from the recent Advent and Lent study groups, it has become apparent that there is an appetite for a group, which would meet on a regular basis throughout the year.

The group would meet informally to explore the Bible and our Christian faith. There may also be a time of prayer.

If you think you would be interested in joining such a group, please get in touch with either of the Church Offices:

Currie Kirk: [email protected]

Balerno Parish Church: [email protected]

Depending on the level of interest, a meeting could be arranged to discuss the day, time, and place that would suit the group best, as well as discussing the format.

Please think about getting in touch.

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.

12/04/2026

Rev at Rugby

Currie and Balerno Linked Charges Interim Minister, Rev Roy Henderson, made his first ever visit to an oval ball match on Saturday 11 April when he was cheering on Currie Chieftains at Malleny Park.

Before the match he had enjoyed lunch at the Chieftain’s clubhouse as a guest at Ian Gidney’s regular table which is known sometimes to as ‘Gidders Crumblies’, that being a reference to the age and condition of members rather than the menu. After meeting Club President Jestyn Davies he then went on to watch a pulsating match in which Currie beat Watsonians 47 - 28 in a semi final Cup Tie.

Roy is a self confessed Patrick Thistle supporter but does admit to having played rugby at school, although he does say that that was not yesterday.

Currie Chieftains will now play Ayr at Murrayfield on 25 April in the Cup Final and who knows, Roy might make his second visit to a rugby match!

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

From 'Easter' by George Herbert

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.

04/04/2026

A Hymn for Holy Saturday

There was a day
when love lay dead;
all hope, all joy
and promise bled
into the ground;
and, through the dark and dread,
God uttered not a sound!

Disciples numbed,
beyond relief,
had never plumbed
such depths of grief,
or ever known
such total disbelief,
with spirits turned to stone.

There come such times
when evil thrives,
and hell, its crimes
let loose, deprives
the earth of light,
consigning wasted lives
to silent, loveless night.

Then those who trust
must stand and bear
hell’s stifling dust
that fills the air;
not brush away
the heart’s despair, but dare
to grieve till Love’s third day.

From God Welcomes All (GWA 121)
Words, Alan Gaunt, inspired by Between Cross and Resurrection:
A Theology of Holy Saturday by Alan E Lewis

01/04/2026

Balerno linked with Currie Church of Scotland

Holy Week 2026

Maundy Thursday Communion Service Currie Kirk 7.00 p.m.

Good Friday Walk of Witness for Good Friday
Begin outside Balerno Parish Church 11.00 a.m..

Evening Service Balerno Parish Church 7.00 p.m.

“The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” John 1.14 (NIV)

At Christmas time, we read those beautiful words from John chapter 1.

Now Holy Week and Easter are upon us.
Now we catch a glimpse of the Word of God dwelling among us.
How is grace received in our often-disgraceful world?
How is truth welcomed in our often-deceitful world?

Jesus, God’s Word made flesh, God’s human face;
Jesus the Servant King, has a long week’s work:

Monday, Bathany;
Martha, Lazarus and Mary
The aroma of perfume and looming betrayal.

Tuesday, Jerusalem;
Philip, Greeks, talk of Glory, Judgement
and grains of wheat dying and rising to life.

Wednesday;
Bread dipped in bitter herbs and salted with betrayal.
Judas going out into the night

Thursday;
Master and Lord washing feet, the servant who calls followers ‘friend’.
Bread broken, cup shared …

Friday;
Strange glory.
Light, hidden, not overcome. “It is finished”.

This is not a drill. Not a performance. Not the appearance of suffering.
This is the Word who listens.
This is God-with-us in Jesus
– Jesus, God-forsaken so that we may be God’s children.

Almighty and ever living God,
in tender love for all our human race
you sent your son our saviour Jesus Christ
to take our flesh
and suffer death upon a cross.
Grant that we may follow
the example of his great humility,
and share in the glory of his resurrection;
through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.
(Collect for Wednesday in Holy Week, Common Order)