With a ministry to a few Iranians running for some years, the Tron church in Glasgow has seen a recent increase in numbers.
As reported briefly in last month’s en, this led to the baptism of over 30 Iranians in February. William Phillip, the minister, gives us some background.
Farsi service
A monthly Farsi service (by translation) was running for around a year, but since the Autumn, a weekly Farsi service began at the same time as the evening service. Over 100 attended each Sunday. The Iranian group became so large at the church Internationals midweek ministries that a separate evening for them commenced where a team of folk lead Bible studies via translators.
The majority have come to real faith, though some may just want to be around the church for the help they get with their asylum claims. Wisdom is required, since obviously for some their main aim is bolstering their claim by professing conversion. At the service where baptisms for 34 Iranians and one Scotsman took place, a dozen others had their baptism delayed or refused as the church takes time to get to know these candidates.
It has been a very moving and wonderful thing to see this unsought-for ministry grow. It is not without difficulty though, given the language issues, the numbers and the culture differences. At times the Tron family feels it is barely coping!
Most of the Iranians are young men and are under-employed (not allowed to work until they get leave to remain, and then they find it hard to get work), with far too much time on their hands. One or two have got in trouble with sexual misdemeanours and a lot of teaching is being done around what is not ‘Christian’ about much of Western culture they are now flung into! And seeking to integrate these brethren into not only the wider church family, which we are trying hard to do, but also British culture, will take time and patience. Reading Acts 6 and the headaches the apostles had sorting out the different cultural expectations of the various groups in the church in Jerusalem is being done in a new light!
It is also difficult when some have to suddenly leave because work becomes available in another part of the country. Contacts with other churches in larger cities where Iranians are congregating are being built up, in order to try to put people in touch with other places when they move.
The Tron are working towards being able to provide simultaneous translation and have been trying to train a few of the best English speakers to do that, with a view to being able to have all the Iranians at the main morning service so that they will be able to mix more with the families and the older folk too, and hopefully that will help integrate them as much as possible.
Plant at Kelvingrove
Prayer is needed for the church as they ‘muddle along’ feeling they are not doing anything terribly well, but giving it the best they can. With their additional location of Tron at Kelvingrove, starting up in April, it is a joy to be taking a church building which had become the home of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra for the last 40 years and turning it back into a living church again. Not too many building conversions are going that way round in Scotland today, so they trust it will be a witness to many. Happily, a new student residence has just opened up right opposite, which couldn’t be better timing! Paul Brennan is going to be a ‘location pastor’ there, heading up the team, though it will still at this stage very much be part of the one Tron church, with ‘mirror’ services to the ones in Bath Street.
