They say experience is the best teacher… so as I head into the prime of my life I should be             learning something!  I’ve grown up working in a butcher’s shop, been a barman, a night porter,

a student,  a Police Officer, a Council Community Safety Officer, an NHS Drug Prevention

Officer, a Parish Minister in a linked charge in Dumfries, a Chaplain to Dumfries Prison,

developed a community outreach project in Kilmarnock and am now Parish Minister of

Portland Church in Troon.  Add to that my fair share of the usual ‘ups and downs’ and I’ve accumulated a fair bit of experience so far.  

But our experiences are worth little if we don’t learn and grow from them, Albert Einstein is often quoted as saying "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results."  And one of my favourite writers John C. Maxwell once said “Experience is what happens to us, but for it to teach us, and for us to benefit from it, we have to evaluate that experience”.  

My role as minister of Portland Parish Church is multifaceted and to do it well I need to reflect on my past, sift through these sometimes random experiences, tease out lessons learned and enable God to work through this rich, but tangled, tapestry of my life so that through me he can get alongside and journey with others through the muddle of their life’s tangles and joys.

It is an answered prayer and a blessing to be called to be the minister of Troon: Portland and a privilege to be invited into schools, community groups and homes in the area.  I look forward to many new and rich experiences with the people of Troon as we reflect on the past, learn together and share new experiences with God and one another.  My prayer is that in doing so, God will bless our future, and through us reach out and bless others!

Jamie Milliken

  

http://johnmaxwellteam.com/experience/

Jamie Milliken