150 years of Scripture Union

IF you happen to see a group of youngsters wearing a Victorian-style moustache this summer, don’t panic. It’s probably just the local Scripture Union Summer mission posing for their ‘Josiah ‘Tash Task selfie, to celebrate 150 years of Scripture Union.

Andy Bathgate, Chief Executive of Scripture Union in Scotland is helping roll out a year’s worth of events to celebrate the anniversary.

He laughs. “The ‘Tash-Task’ is so that people can take selfies of themselves sporting the Josiah Spiers Tash and send them to us as part of our website!

“Josiah Spiers started the seaside missions by writing ‘God Is Love’ in the sand and telling bible stories to the children who came round to listen to him, and one of the other events we’re holding this year is the Elie Beach Mission where we’re going to recreate that event.”

The Rev Colin Sinclair was the General Director of SU Scotland from 1988-1996 and is currently the Chair of the International council for SU covering the work in 130 countries. He has fond memories of SU.

“I never realised that breaking the school rules would have such consequences! Trying to save thirty seconds I had committed the cardinal crime of trying to leave school by going down the “up stair”. Unfortunately a prefect saw me and called on me to stop. Instead I turned round and hurried up the “Up stair” to the top of the school. Fearing a pursuit which probably never came, I went to hide in the Art room at the end of the corridor. However I found I had inadvertently barged into an after-school club at which a film was being shown. Thankful for the darkness I sat down and, after recovering my breath, started to watch the film. It was of a Scripture Union holiday and looked great fun. Yes there was a religious bit, but surely you could put up with that for the sake of the rest. I took the brochure home and to my delight my parents said I could go.

“My first SU camp was all I could have hoped for, and, to my surprise, the morning and evening meetings, with its lively singing and a simple clear well illustrated talk, was the hinge round which the day revolved. I became fascinated by the story of Jesus, found the bible practical and relevant and was deeply moved by the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection. I started making SU camp a regular part of my year and at my third camp, aged 12, I gave my life to Christ. I attended the SU group at school, but camp remained the high spot of each year with an Easter house-party and a summer camp under canvas.

“When I left school and went to university I was asked to become a volunteer leader. Every summer I would help set up camp, be a tent leader through several camps and at the end restore the field to the condition we had found it. I loved the atmosphere and made friends that have remained with me all my life. I enjoyed the activities – sailing, canoeing, hill-walking, tennis and played a full part in the camp games and competitions. I also learned how to give a short talk, lead a group bible study, share in prayer and explain my faith. It was to be the seed-bed in which my call to the ministry grew.

“Having been accepted by the Church of Scotland as a candidate, before I went to New College, SU invited me to serve, for what turned out to be a wonderful three years in Zambia. This was to allow two Zambians to study at Bible College in England. The Overseas Council of the Church asked its missionaries in Zambia to look out for me and they gave me wonderful support and encouragement.

“It was only in going to Zambia that I fully discovered how international SU was.

“This year SU celebrates its 150th birthday and is currently working in over 120 countries. SU is not like McDonald’s with an identical franchise in each country.

“Rather, each country takes the twin aims of reaching out to the next generation with the gospel and helping people of all ages to encounter God through reading the bible and prayer, and works out what that means in its own culture and context. It may be, like Scotland, with work in schools, taking Assemblies, running groups and providing a range of holiday and weekend activities. Here we provide churches with bible reading materials, resources for children’s and youth work, and holiday club material. More recently digital resources have been provided like ‘Wordlive’ and the increasingly popular ‘Guardians of Ancora’. But in other countries it takes different forms. They may work with street kids as in Peru, help child soldiers and ex-prostitutes as in Congo (DRC), work with children with disabilities as in Canada, or support displaced families fleeing from Boko Haram in Nigeria and so much more.

“After becoming a minister my involvement became more limited to occasional bible teaching at meetings and conferences. However, unexpectedly I was invited to become General Director of the work in Scotland and did this for eight years before returning to the parish. One legacy of this time was that my wife and I ran an SU holiday for teenagers each summer at Alltnacriche (SU centre near Aviemore) and we continued doing that for many years after I went to Palmerston Place. Our four children grew up from birth with SU holidays as part of their year and we are grateful that all four have an active Christian faith. Our eldest worked for SU in Scotland for ten years, the next two did gap years with SU in South Africa (our son is currently a probationer and our daughter works with refugees and asylum seekers through Glasgow City Mission).

“The youngest went to Congo with AIM and, as a result changed direction and now is training to be a midwife. SU has changed our family’s life. Our grandchildren are already in double figures for camps they have attended and they are only six and three! Our latest arrival is less than a month old so he has an excuse!

Elie Beach Mission 1953

Elie Beach Mission 2016

“Currently I am International Chair for SU and, as such, have seen the work in many different parts of the world. When Josiah Spiers started work among children in London in 1867 and famously got children to help make a sand pulpit and the words ‘God is love’ with shells on the beach in Llandudno, who would have thought such a world-wide movement would have been the result?

“In November this year representatives of the SU family will gather in Malaysia for a Global Assembly. Before that, in Scotland and in the rest of the UK, there will be special activities to mark 150 years.

“For many like me, SU is where our Christian faith started and where we learned to serve.

“And for me it all started with breaking school rules!”

For some though, their Scripture Union experience has been one of the most important things that has happened to them in their lives – it brought them to faith.

The Rev Kenny Borthwick described his experience with Scripture Union.

“About 45 years ago, I was sitting in a small tent feeling very confused. I was near St Fillans on Loch Earn. Along with dozens of other young folk I had fished in the Loch for pike and played games on its shores. Occasionally though, after a game of table tennis, I had walked the shore alone thinking of all that I had heard that week; my first time away from home, my first Scripture Union Camp. If a young boy can feel awe, then awe is what I felt in those solitary moments. It is not that I had never heard bible stories before, nor was I a stranger to church and to prayer. These things were a deep and sincere part of family life being handed down from my maternal grandparents to my parents and to my sister and myself.

“However as I walked, one-third thinking, one-third praying, one-third aware of not being truly alone after all, somehow I could not find words to express my response to a truth that I had never heard clearly before: ‘He was wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities.’ I am sure I must have been told that before (or was I?), but that is what had come home to me with incredible awareness that good wee ‘mummy’s boy’ that I was, I needed a Saviour. I knew that to be true. I had no argument with what I had heard from Colin Sinclair my tent officer, or any of the other leaders. It made sense of me to me in a way that nothing I had ever heard before in my life made sense of me to me.

Lendrick Muir

“The confusion was this: out of the dozens of us who had played together, ate together, laughed together, sung together and listened to talks together, there were only three in that small tent towards the end of the week. That was the total number of my contemporaries that week who wanted to find out how to start following Jesus as Saviour and Lord. I had presumed no sane person would not want to know Jesus as saviour and Lord! I was wrong. However that confusion was for me the beginning of my call to ministry. On the very day that I took a conscious step to respond to Jesus Christ personally, a thought was born: ‘If I was a minister I could and would tell everyone about the cross.’

“I travelled home with that thought. It never went away.

“It seemed to be nurtured and strengthened over the years as I continued to a teacher led SU group at my school, Kelvinside Academy in Glasgow. Several of that group went on to become full time ministers of Word and Sacrament. It was a joy in my own ministry to help lead SU groups in different parishes and schools from time to time over the years with very wonderful volunteers leaders and helpers. Usually these groups are times of great hilarity. I was amazed however, even on the most boisterous of days, how often a moment (even if it was literally just a moment!) of strange calm would come.

“Wester Hailes, (in Edinburgh) where I served most recently until having to retire through ill health, is very different from the shores of Loch Earn, but the same Christ was drawing near there, walking with children and young people. I have not lost the capacity to feel awe when that happens. As a throwaway fact, there are many more attending SU in Wester Hailes than when I was a helper there!

“Some may dismiss my story as a typical ‘SU experience’. Well, the convictions I felt all those decades ago, sustained me through 34 years of ministry, and sustain me still. I still want to minister this Christ somehow! I am not fully sure how yet in these changes circumstances! Of course I came to know more of God in Christ in His Word by the Holy Spirit However, nothing I have learned has ever brought me more joy than when I thought at St Fillans of how Christ ‘loved me and gave himself for me.’”

What’s happening this year.

Story Project – All Year

Everyone is encouraged to share their stories of Scripture Union to inspire the next 150 years. Send your memories in.

Josiah ‘tash task’ Jan – Aug

Sport a Josiah Spiers ‘Tash with your SU group, holiday or mission and send us back a #150yearsofSU selfie!

International Trips – Summer months

Young People will work with SU Rwanda and go to the International Leadership Camp in Ukraine this summer.

Elie Beach Mission – Summer months

Josiah kicked us off with ‘God Is Love’ in the sand – come along and join our recreation at Elie.

Beach Ball Selfies August – October

Take one of our anniversary beach balls on your travels and send back a #150yearsofSU selfie.

Big Celebration August 19 Lendrick Muir

Our annual family friendly event will have a special focus on International Ministry, including several guests from other SU movements. Special events all around the country this week.

Anniversary service – October 28, Edinburgh 2.30 – 4pm

A special national gathering to celebrate 150 years of ministry.