Downloadable Programme

We have prepared a downloadable programme so that you can see at a glance what was on and when!

Take Me To…

Programme – Main Sessions

Friday Evening Prayer Gathering : 7.30pm

Entering God’s Presence Together

Praying for our churches and our local communities

Praying For The Most Marginalised

Yielding To God

…plus late night worship!

Saturday Morning Session 1 : 10.00-11.00am

Listening to Scripture, with Simon Dennis, Minister of Sheddocksley Baptist, Aberdeen

What does fruitfulness look like in your context?

Global Perspectives – what does fruitfulness look like in World Mission?

Saturday Morning Session 2 : 11.30am -12.30pm

Being fruitful in creation care

Climate Change, with Dr Ruth Valerio, currently the Director of Global Advocacy and Influencing at Tearfund.

Our response, an opportunity to respond as individuals and as churches together

Sunday Gathering : 10.30am

A worship celebration for Baptist churches across Scotland, with music, prayers, Scripture and voices from around the country.

Bearing Fruit That Will Last, with Yinka Oyekan, Senior Pastor, The Gate Church, Reading and former President of the Baptist Union of Great Britain.

There will be a live baptism from one of our churches!

Programme – Saturday Seminars

Changing Climate, Changing World 1: How do we face the facts?

1.30pm -2.30pm

Martyn Link will be exploring climate change; energy; how churches can engage with this.

alpha online

Digital Environment 1: Where is the church when people Google the big questions?

1.30-2.30pm

Andrew Flynn will be thinking about what fruitful mission could look like in the online environment.

Re:Connecting 1: What sort of community do we want to become?

 1.30-2.30pm

Andy Harding will be considering how might we reconfigure our priorities in order to enhance connection further?

Changing Climate, Changing World 2: How does a climate crisis impact our discipleship?

3.00-4.00pm

Laura Young, COP26 Campaigns and Advocacy Coordinator for Tearfund Scotland, will be giving a practical guide about environmental lifestyle choices and why COP26 matters.

Re:Connecting 2: After two years of disruption, how will our children grow in their faith?

3.00-4.00pm

Rachel Turner, Parenting for Faith pioneer at BRF. Equipping and nourishing spirituality in our homes (youth and family focused)

Re:Connecting 3: How can churches live and witness at the heart of our communities?

3.00-4.00pm

Ali Boulton will be exploring why local communities have become more significant recently; how do we build on this for mission in the next season?

Digital Environment 2: Can churches make authentic community online?

3.00-4.00pm

Jonas Kurlberg will be considering how we optimise our use of the digital in order to build deeper connection online, if it is here to stay?

Family Programme

Fun for all the family!

Our Family programme is for children and their parents/guardians to join on Zoom for an action-packed half an hour of fun-filled activity!

There will be a Family Programme held via Zoom on both Saturday and Sunday mornings from 9.00am – 9.30am.

Simply click on the links  to take you to Zoom!

Youth Programme

Youth Session 1

What does it look like to have a fruitful life?

alpha online

Youth Session 2

What does an abiding life look like?

Youth Session 3

What does a responsive life look like?

Key Contributors

Simon Dennis

Simon has been part of the Sheddocksley church family since moving to Aberdeen in 1996. Having worked in the oil industry for 14 years Simon responded to God’s call to full time pastoral ministry in 2010, which included a return to university to study theology, at the same time as working full time in ‘Shedd’ as Assistant Pastor. As Lead Pastor since 2016 his heart for all people to grow in their faith, his teaching that equips ‘everyday disciples’, and his apostolic love for local community have been hallmarks of Simon’s life and ministry. Together with Karen he parents 3 teenage boys, and his greatest passions outside his family are coffee and sport (tennis and mountain biking are his new favourites).

Ruth Valerio

Dr Ruth Valerio is Global Advocacy and Influencing Director at Tearfund. An environmentalist, theologian and social activist. Ruth holds a doctorate from King’s College London, and honorary doctorates from the Universities of Winchester and Chichester. She is Canon Theologian at Rochester Cathedral and her home church is part of the 24/7 Prayer Network. She enjoys living sustainably – practising what she preaches and inspiring others as she does so – in the South of England with her family. She is the author of L is for Lifestyle:Christian Living that doesn’t cost the earth and Just Living:Faith and Community in an age of Consumerism, and has written the Archbishop of Canterbury’s 2020 Lent book, entitled Saying Yes to Life. Ruth is a regular contributor on Radio 4 and the BBC World Service.

alpha online

Yinka Oyekan

Yinka Oyekan is the senior pastor of The Gate Church in Reading.  He has a long history in equipping and training individuals in evangelism and mission. He has also been involved in the pioneering of churches from scratch with his wife Fiona. Yinka’s main passion throughout has been in Church Planting as the building of a strong community of disciples is the ultimate goal of evangelisation.

In 2016 an evangelistic outpouring of the Holy Spirit at The Gate led to the birth of The Turning.  This evangelistic ministry has resulted in thousands of believers across many denominations and streams going out onto the streets and sharing their faith with their communities. Yinka was the President of the Baptist Union of Great Britain from 2020-2021. He is married to Fiona and they have three sons.

Martyn Link

Martyn works for Wood Plc, the UK’s largest engineering and technical services company, headquartered in Aberdeen. Martyn leads the company’s energy transition mega-trend as well as being head of strategy. Martyn began his career in science, completing two degrees at Edinburgh University before working in the life science industry in Edinburgh and Dundee. In 2014 Martyn, along with three other Christian businessmen, launched the Business Connection charity, which seeks to equip, encourage and empower the corporate sector in Aberdeen. In 2019 this ministry gave birth to the Thrive conference which saw 12 Christian organisations join together to launch this catalyst conference in Aberdeen, as well as a new Christian workplace group within Wood Plc. Martyn lives in the beautiful Scottish countryside north of Dundee and is married to Gladys, with whom he has three teenage children.

Andy Harding

Andy and Odele live in the south of Edinburgh with their two young boys Jenson and Tobyn. The family moved to the beautiful city seven years ago and love serving Jesus at Central Church in this most beautiful of nations. Andy has a real heart to see the church increasingly become the beautiful bride Jesus calls us to be as we simply grow in our love for God and one another. He is also passionate about seeing godly leaders raised up and released in all spheres of society.

Andrew Flynn

Andrew Flynn is the Data Analytics Manager at Christian Vision (CV), helping CV make sense of the digital landscape and the opportunities it provides for evangelism. Andrew’s call to mission began while an engineering student at Edinburgh University in the 1980s, a few years later joining CV to help pioneer Radio Christian Voice, the first non-governmental radio station in Zambia.

After a number of years working all over the world establishing and overseeing broadcast facilities with CV, the emergence of ‘new media’ and the internet led to Andrew playing a formative role in developing strategies to use digital platforms to introduce people to Jesus and helping the church integrate this into its mission.

Andrew is married to Tracey, an artist, and lives in Tamworth. He enjoys good coffee and playing tennis.

Laura Young

Laura Young is an environmental activist, passionate about intersectional climate justice issues. Based in Glasgow, Laura works for Tearfund as the COP26 Campaigns and Advocacy Coordinator alongside being an ethical influencer online under the name Less Waste Laura. Her work looks to educate, challenge, and inspire people to think more about the system in which we live, specifically speaking into Christian groups and churches as we look towards the United Nations COP26 Climate Summit which will be held in Glasgow, November 2021. She is an environmental scientist by degree, but has joined her passion for the outdoors, academic background and faith to pursue justice through everyday living and activism. She has been a member of the Public Theology Group for the Baptist Union of Scotland since the beginning of 2021.

Ali Boulton

Ali Boulton is a practitioner, consultant, researcher in New Housing Engagement. She has been a pioneer Baptist minister living on a new housing estate for over 10 years, loving and blessing residents and birthing a community relevant church. During that time her regional and national engagement has grown and, along with Rev Penny Marsh, she has written a Grove book about Ministry on new housing estates and founded the ecumenical New Housing Hub in partnership with Fresh Expressions, Churches Together in England, and Baptists Together. She is part of the Fresh Expressions National Core team; has been commissioned to work with The Archbishop of Canterbury’s Commission on Housing, Church and Community researching new housing engagement, and is undertaking Doctoral research in this area.

Jonas Kurlberg

Jonas Kurlberg is a Tutor in Theology at Spurgeon’s College where he also manages the MA in Digital Theology. Over the last few years he has been researching the implication of digital technology for Christian faith and practice at the Centre for Digital Theology at Durham University.

Rachel Turner

Rachel is the Parenting for Faith pioneer at BRF. God gave her the vision for Parenting for Faith in 2005 in response to a need in her local church, and it has grown from there.  She consults, speaks at conferences and runs training days for parents and church leaders around the UK and Europe.  She is an author of eight books including Parenting Children for a Life of Faith, It Takes a Church to Raise a Parent, and Comfort in the Darkness and is the creator of the Parenting for Faith course. www.parentingforfaith.org

Canopy Worship Team

The worship team serving as our ‘House Band’ over the weekend consists of a number of talented musicians from some of our churches in central Scotland. We are very grateful for their time in serving and leading our network of churches in worship during the Canopy weekend. 

Tech Team and Hosts

We have a fantastic technical team beavering away in the background to make sure that Canopy goes live! We couldn’t put on Canopy without this amazing group of people. 

We also have a fab team of session hosts and again we are grateful for the effort they put in to make Canopy such an amazing event to be part of.