Dan Alcantara

Category: Prayers & Updates

  • Ministry & Family Update – November 2024

    Ministry & Family Update – November 2024

    As I write this, I have just finished writing out my sermon for Sunday. It’s been a week of preparing for Advent, battling a cold, and spending two days up to my elbows in Minor Prophets.

    Family

    This isn’t a wedding photo but one from a session we did for fun with our old friend Sabrina a few years later
    This isn’t a wedding photo but one from a session we did for fun with our old friend Sabrina a few years later

    November has been quite a busy month for us both at home and in ministry. On the 7th, Tracy and I celebrated 16 years of marriage. We both had to work that day so we spent the previous day in Glasgow together hopping around cafes. It’s hard to describe what it feels like to have been married for 16 years because it is both a long time and not very long at all. I cannot imagine life any other way and I barely recognise memories from before we were married. What I am sure of is the fact that I am so grateful for Tracy. Life would be so much less were it not for her.

    In other family news, both Chloe and Liam took part in their school’s annual pantomime, Chloe in the chorus and Liam as a part of the band! Both of them have come to love performing and it’s such a joy to see them flourish like this.

    Ministry

    At church, we have finished up our sermon series in 1 Peter. I am hoping to compile my notes on the whole book alongside my sermon outlines in order to make them available to whoever might find them useful. 1 Peter has been a consistent source of encouragement and challenge over the last few months as I read and re-read the letter. If you’ve never tried out immersive rereading, I highly recommend it.

    Looking ahead to December, we are holding our annual Blue Christmas service on the 8th, a Christmas Eve carol service, and a short service on Christmas Day.

    During our Lord’s Day gatherings, we will be looking at Luke 1. I’ve titled the sermon series “the nativity of st. luke” even though we won’t get Jesus’ birth until Christmas day in order to remind us that this is a season of waiting. We wait for God to move in our lives, in the world, and ultimately to return in Christ at the Second Advent.

    Prayer requests

    As always, we covet your prayers over these things, believing that God works through the prayers of his people:

    Blue Christmas

    While this is normally a service simply for those in our congregation who are struggling, it is always hoped that we will attract those from the community. Pray for me as I prepare to teach and the team as they prepare to serve in childcare and with catering.

    Christmas Carols @ Cappielow

    I’ve been invited to speak at a community carol service which will take place at Greenock’s local ⚽️ stadium. This is exciting and a bit intimidating, but I’m looking forward to the opportunity to preach the gospel. Again, pray for me as I prepare to preach.

    Tracy & AT3

    Tracy continues to be very busy with AT3. While her role has shifted to focusing on mobilisation for the whole organisation, she is still working quite closely on the summer internship. Right now they are in the midst of interviewing candidates for the 2025 internship, which is taking up quite a lot of her time. Be praying that the whole team would have a good sense of who to welcome onto the program and also that the internship itself would be a great success with students from American universities spending the summer at UK churches to get a taste of ministry in a post-Christian context.

  • A bit of an odd summer

    I’ve been going for walks through the local cemetery recently. It’s quiet, wooded, and offers some amazing views of the surrounding area.

    July has been a bit of an odd month for us. Tracy continues to be busy with the AT3 Interns and ministry has continued for me but we’re doing all of this while also juggling the fact that the kids are off from school.

    Our summer series is about some of the fundamentals of the Christian life. It’s the first series done at the church by the preaching team rather than just me and it’s been really encouraging so far. Over the course of 8 weeks we’re looking at Bible reading, prayer, and worship and how those things affect the rest of our lives. You can listen back to the sermons here.

    As I mentioned before, we have a couple of outreach events happening as well. We’ll be setting up a table at the local shopping centre to hand out copies of Luke’s gospel and some tracts and invites to church as well as simply being there for people to chat to. Our building is in a great location for the work that we are doing but it isn’t as visible as others in the area so we’re excited to remind people that we are still there.

    At home, though, we’ve been able to enjoy the fact that we’re only a 25-minute bus-ride away from the beach.

    Hats and coats at the beach because this is still Scotland

    You’ll notice in the picture above, though, that we’re still bundled up a bit. Summer here seems to only happen on select days. June and much of July have felt very similar to October!

    That’s the Well Park Mid Kirk, an old Church of Scotland building that doesn’t currently have a minister.

    When summer does show its face, it’s hard to complain. What you can’t see in that photo are the seagulls that were hoping to steal my lunch.

    Ways to pray

    • Pray that we would see people visiting the church as a result of our outreach events.
    • Pray for the summer interns with AT3, by the time this goes out as an email, the interns will all be finishing up and getting ready to head home.
    • We have one trip away to see friends in Birmingham (UK) in August. Pray that it would be a good time with them and that it would also be a good rest for us as a family.

  • a big couple of weeks

    As I write this, we are in the middle of a very busy couple of weeks. It began with Tracy getting to attend Cornhill Summer School, which is essentially a 3-day sample of the full Cornhill Training Course which I attended during my apprenticeship.

    Tracy said that over 100 people took part to spend 3 days learning about Bible handling, reading, and teaching.

    Tracy with Jon Gemmell (left) and Andy Gemmill (right). They are not related to each other.

    Jon Gemmell is the director of the Cornhill Training Course and Andy Gemmill is the director of the Pastors Training Course (PTC). Jon was essential in creating the partnership between Ardgowan Square and Cornhill. Andy continues to be my teacher with PTC and a regular source of encouragement in the work of leading this church.

    meeting for the first time

    As many of you will now, a sudden sojourning in Poland is a part of our ministry journey. When I received the news that my visa was going to be refused back in 2019, our missions organisation at the time put me in touch with a couple who are set apart for the purpose of caring for missionaries.

    Were it not for them, I do not know if we would still be doing what we are doing today.

    But after nearly 5 years of only speaking via Whatsapp or on Zoom calls, we finally got to meet in person!

    They’ve been on a trip through the UK visiting various missionaries and ministry workers while also doing some sightseeing.

    There are no words to describe how wonderful it was to get to spend time with them.

    Prayer requests

    • June is looking to be a very busy month. In addition to my normal preaching, I’ll also be speaking at the commissioning service for a youth camp which will be happening. I’ll also be at a preaching residential for a couple of days and then at the big Expository Ministry Conference in Glasgow. Pray for sanity and productivity amidst all of this.
    • We will also be holding our first members class! This is very exciting but also daunting because the church has never had a formal membership process before.
    • As I write this, Tracy is away in Edinburgh for the AT3 Summer Internship. Pray that the time will be beneficial for all who are there and for a chance to recover afterwards.

  • Our church was gifted chairs by two churches, one which sadly closed and one which is undergoing building work. We’ve now got space for 170 people to sit comfortably. Pray with us that these chairs would be filled!

  • Churches and youth groups together

    One aspect of ministry that I continue to find surprising and encouraging here in Scotland is that churches really do try to work together to reach their towns.

    Yesterday, I was able to attend a lunch put on by Inverclyde Christian Initiative, a charity that is all about doing gospel ministry in our local area. There were churches of all stripes who may have different beliefs and convictions on things like baptism or church polity but we are all united on the gospel.

    This was the case when we served in Strathaven as well. There is no way that any one church will be able to reach an entire town. Greenock itself has over 40,000 people. No church could possibly hope to reach all of them, and there wouldn’t be anything close to acceptable pastoral care in a church of that size.

    In any case, it was encouraging to see that we all share the particular concern of trying to reach the young people in our area. They are being taught some terrible things in school about the nature of humanity, personhood, and all that goes with those things. There are multiple churches working together right now to reach teenagers in our town.

    Our church has a very small youth group, and 75% of the kids are mine, but we are still working to present them with the gospel. Heading into the final week of March and Holy Week in particular, be praying that they would not ignore the message of Jesus as it is presented to them again. Pray that their hearts would be softened and that their ears would hear.