Lasswade & Rosewell

Parish Church

Welcome to Lasswade and Rosewell Parish church website

Rev Lorna M Souter

Telephone:  0131 663 6392

Mobile:        07889 566418

Email:   Click here to email

Latest News

Common Vision Statement: ‘A church where people of all generations seek to journey together with God to grow in faith and trust and be led by God to use their gifts to make a difference in the lives of others, sharing God’s love in word and action and enabling them to become disciples of Christ.’  

Our Church is again closed due to the current Covid regulations.

Joint online services with Cockpen and Carrington Parish Church are available here:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiwgEoiSjvt56YbCL6Sok8w

To read our December Newsletter click here

Rosewell Memorial Hall

A book has been published, detailing the history of our memorial hall and in particular the lives of the local men from Rosewell that it honours.  It is possible to read the book by clicking this picture of the cover.

Please ignore the software sponsors water mark. To navigate the book either use the controls at the bottom of each page or click the bottom corner of the page, right to go forward, left corner to go back.

Lives of The First World War

The legacy of Lives of the First World War is a permanent digital memorial on iwm.org.uk, which is free to access and search.  The IWM website is now live. The link is to the family community, Rosewell War Memorial Hall  and Lasswade War Memorial and Church Plaque

Thank you to those who added to the Rosewell or Lasswade community.

The ministers thoughts from December Newsletter 2020

‘The people walking in darkness have seen a great light, on those living in the land of darkness a light has dawned.’  Isaiah 9: 2

As we approach Christmas 2020, many of us may be feeling this has been a difficult and challenging year.  Many have had to face months of feeling very inactive and isolated.  Some have experienced the loss of loved ones and a deepened helplessness and sadness because it wasn’t possible to be with them in the way we would have wanted.  Some have faced risk, stress and exhaustion serving as NHS staff and care home staff, as well as in other frontline roles.  Parents and children had to cope with home schooling.  Some have had a long period on furlough with loss of income and real uncertainty about future jobs and livelihoods.  We may now all be anxious that Christmas is going to be very different this year, and without the same opportunities to be together.

It is interesting to look back to Christmas 1918 and see how the nation then faced very difficult and challenging times.  The end of the First World War in November had brought great rejoicing.  After all the devastation and hardship during the war, people were very ready to get together on the streets to celebrate.  And yet there was still further trauma to come.  While the Spanish Influenza pandemic had been waning in 1918, armistice celebrations caused a second wave of infection and many who had come through the war succumbed to the flu.  It eventually claimed the lives of 40 million people worldwide.

In that situation in December 1918 there was a fear that Christmas would need to be cancelled.  It just wouldn’t be possible to be together if all that did was spread the flu.  However, to everyone’s relief, the infection rate began to fall in mid-December.  Shops and churches were able to open again and Christmas, though different, did still happen.

In Cambridge that Christmas, Eric Milner-White, aged thirty-four, had just been appointed Dean of King’s College.  He had previously served as an army chaplain.  Reflecting on this, the terrible impact of the war and the ongoing threat of Spanish flu, the new Dean saw a need for more imaginative worship that Christmas.  What could that look like for a nation that had come through so much and for so many who had lost so much?  He set upon the idea of a service of Nine Lessons and Carols and this service that has become such a favourite, took place for the first time that Christmas.  As Eric Milner-White said, the unfolding readings from the Bible showed the development of the loving purposes of God seen through the windows and words of the Bible.

This year as we are uncertain what Christmas will be like, we can still hold onto those same loving purposes of God at the heart of Christmas.  We celebrate the birth of Jesus again and are reminded that he is Emmanuel – ‘God with us’.  He came to show us God’s love; he came to put us right with God; he came as the Light of the World to bring peace and hope.  Always Jesus is the voice and presence of peace to the weary and worn as we may be feeling right now.  Always in his selfless love for us, hope springs eternal for we know we are not alone.  His love builds us up and brings hope, and whether we can be face to face or not this Christmas, the love we share with each other in different and special ways also brings hope as we press on and look to the new year together in 2021.  - LMS