If you would prefer to read this in such publications as ‘Tidings’ (in a few weeks) or the ‘Messenger’ (in a few years), look away now:

On Friday 29th April 6 young men from Northern Ireland flew from Antrim to Glasgow for the second Covenanter Theological Institute Spring Conference. As we emerged from Glasgow Airport a limousine pulled up, but we opted to travel the short distance to Airdrie with Andrew Quigley driving us in his car instead. When we arrived Andrew welcomed us back to Airdrie and told us about the Mission that had been held two weeks previously. By this stage we had been in Airdrie about an hour and hadn’t yet been to visit Mr. Kebab so we decided to rectify this, Andrew having surrendered his people carrier to the Irish contingent for the weekend. Having got our food we went to the home of Rob and Jess and watched The Incredibles with them, their wolf and some locals. Then we returned to the church hall and played some cricket before having the first of our captivating late night team discussions.
The next day we got up and had our first two talks on our theme of ‘Making Disciples’ in quick succession, separated by a coffee break. In the first talk we looked at the reason for making disciples (with a ‘disciple’ being defined as ‘A believer in Jesus Christ who demonstrates the reality of that belief through deliberate conscientious obedience to the rule of Christ in all areas of their life.’) We then looked at who is responsible for making disciples and that if we desire to make disciples we must abide in Christ by remaining in His Word, developing and maintaining prayer and being ruthless with ourselves as we seek to obey the commands of Christ.
Lunch was kindly provided for us in the hall and when it was finished we were still no nearer deciding what to do for the afternoon than we had been when we had started discussing the subject a month ago. In the end we decided to go and watch Airdrie United who were at home to already relegated Partick Thistle. Stopping off on the way to get money to pay for the extortionate £14 notes they were asking for admittance, one of our members got into discussion with a local youngster. “Holy John” had such an impact that when we next saw his new friend, 5 minutes later outside the stadium, he had been arrested and was in the company of two armed policemen. Airdrie lost the match 1-0 despite a late resurgence, but it didn’t dampen our spirits and some of us decided to buy Airdrie shirts. After this we headed into Edinburgh for our tea and dander around the Capital. Then we went back to the hall for more cricket and bed.
On the Sabbath we heard Andrew preach on Philippians 1 and John 11, and in between we had lunch at Karen’s house with Charles and Dorothy Muir. After the evening service we went back to the Quigley’s home for supper. On Monday morning we had a fry for breakfast for which Andrew joined us, before giving us our last talk, showing from the story of the golden calf in Exodus 32 and 33 that making disciples is all about the Kingdom and the glory of God. We then had lunch, again kindly provided for us in the hall and then thought we’d play some cricket for a change. In the remaining time before our flight we had fun with a bread trolley opposite the Quigley’s home. Then Beth and Karen took us to the airport for our short flight home, with the general consensus being that it was the highlight of our year so far. I would definitely encourage people to go next year for an incomparable four days of teaching and craic. There really is nothing better you could be doing for these 4 days and the CTI is a must for anyone (male or female!) who wants to grow in their relationship with God.