JOHN DEMPSTER: 'Why Jesus would be at home in this Highland men's shed'
Register for free to read more of the latest local news. It's easy and will only take a moment.
Jesus would have been at home here, I thought. Didn’t he work as a joiner and housebuilder in the family firm?
He’d have loved exploring these well-equipped workshops, or sitting round the table in the meeting room, cradling a hot coffee, roaring with laughter along with his mates.
My friend Donald Macquarrie had invited me to visit the Inverness Men’s Shed which meets in the old sports pavilion behind Millburn Academy. Each week, up to 80 people drop in to use the tools and equipment, or listen to speakers – and there’s always room for more.
- Read more from John Dempster
- Read more from our columnists
- Ross-shire Journal news briefing twice a week – free to your inbox
Before his retirement, Donald was the Church of Scotland minister in Fort William. I was intrigued when he told he saw working at the Men’s Shed as an extension of his ministry.
As we chatted, I realised what a perfect ‘fit’ the Shed is for Donald. He’s always worked with his hands – as a Dumbarton-based electricity board worker before he trained as a minister, and subsequently in model-making.
And he’s always been a ‘people person’.
“It’s just a delight meeting people where they are,” he tells me. He loves chatting to the men in the Shed, not preaching, simply walking with them through their circumstances with a warm encouragement.
I suspect that in meeting Donald, some people with a negative view of church and ministers have come to see Christianity in a completely new light.
In some ways, the Men’s Shed functions like a church. The men, Donald tells me, show ‘a real concern for one another’. They share their skills, they support the local community. They help people with household repairs; they make and sell wooden artefacts like planting pots – and, the day I was there, a wheelchair ramp; they recycle, seeing potential in what other people have discarded.
“Is God at work in the Men’s Shed?” I asked.
Earlier, Donald had told me about the powerful awareness which grew in him as a young man that God is an active presence within us. It was this inner prompting, and his desire to be part of what God is doing which led him into the ministry.
Yes, God is at work in the Men’s Shed in every conversation, every kind word. God is with us as we labour in the workshop of our lives, helping us change for the better, opening our eyes to overlooked treasure in ourselves and others.
As I watch Donald talking easily with the men, sharing a piece of the birthday cake someone has brought in, helping a man guide a plank through the circular saw, I realise it’s not so much that Jesus would have been at home in the Men’s Shed; more that Jesus IS at home here.
