Life & Work Magazine
Life & Work Magazine


35 mins

Making a Diference

ALL around the world throughout 2017, Scripture Union movements celebrated SU’s 150th anniversary in a whole variety of ways.

In England the Queen attended a service at St Mary’s Church in Islington, North London, close to where the organisation’s first meeting was held in December 1867.

Their 150th anniversary service featured the popular classical singer Katherine Jenkins and was recorded by BBC’s Songs of Praise for future transmission.

Here in Scotland, among other activities, hundreds gathered in a large Edinburgh church to celebrate the special anniversary.

There were volunteers and staff going back to the 1950s and up to the present day and it was a wonderful day of reunions and thanksgiving.

Photos on social media have portrayed the variety and creativity of the SU family as they marked this important milestone in distinctive ways. However, this year was also an important milestone for the global movement. Five years ago representatives from all over the world had gathered to reaffirm our aims, beliefs and working principles, but also to identify the challenges for mission, leadership and training for the future. Behind the scenes these last five years have been a busy time trying to get SU ready for its 150th birthday!

In November about 350 people from 120 countries gathered in Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. We met in a hotel close by a lake.

The sight of alligators in the lake made you realise that you were not in Scotland! As with all such milestone celebrations it was a case of “Hats off to the past, coats off for the future”. We had come to approve a new constitution, elect a new leadership and begin a new way of working together. Over the last two years national movements had started meeting in community groups with their neighbours. There they heard each other’s stories, shared resources, worked together, prayed, planned and encouraged each other as they sought to reach the next generation with the good news of the gospel.

At the Global Assembly we all sat in the main hall in table groups of eight, usually drawn from eight different countries.

These were the groups we used for discussion and prayer, but it also ensured that everyone belonged. We could look out for each other conscious that some would struggle with language, diet or jet lag.

Some had come from difficult and demanding situations and wanted to share their stories with others for support and encouragement. Some are in daily danger for their faith and could not be included in photos. The groups became very important and ensured that no-one felt left out.

In the midst of a full programme of meetings aiming to inform and inspire, the most memorable, humbling and uplifting moments were often conversations that took place at mealtimes or other breaks in the day.

I remember talking to a doctor from South Sudan who chairs the work of SU in that country. Tall and dignified, and seriously undernourished, he spoke of how he was orphaned when he was ten years old. Apart from a few years, he has spent all his life in a country at war with itself.

Despite that he managed to get an education and to qualify as a doctor, but he felt his people needed him and so he returned to Khartoum. Even in the last year he has known bullets fly across his garden in which his children play. When asked how he coped, his face broke into this enormous smile as he answered and spoke simply of the grace of God with no trace of self-pity in his speech.

When Ruth (my wife) and I were out for a walk one evening, we spoke with one of our translators, (all the main sessions were simultaneously translated into French, Spanish, Russian and Korean) She told me of how she grew up as a card carrying communist in Soviet Russia, believing in the cause. When the Berlin Wall fell and Communism was discredited she was completely lost, as she now had no framework for her life. She was dismayed at the fall in moral standards in her society.

Searching for meaning she found Jesus Christ. Now a Professor in a Russian university and conscious that the open doors of the last 30 years are closing again, she spoke simply and powerfully of how she and then her family came to faith, we listened spellbound at her story.

As we met in KL, I became very conscious that SU’s strength is that it has never tried to impose a uniform brand (like McDonalds) on its work. Rather, for the last almost 70 years, SU has promoted the growth of national leadership, both male and female, and encouraged them to find their mission focus in the context in which they were set. While every SU movement is committed to reach the next generation and help all people meet with God through reading the Bible and prayer, the way this happens takes different forms.

In Scotland we are used to SU groups in schools, a programme of residential activities at weekends and in the holidays, holiday clubs and resources for churches.

In other countries, however, it takes different forms. There are those who have an extensive chaplaincy programme in schools supported by the government.

Others work with those who have special needs and those who are disabled. Some reach out to child soldiers who have seen and participated in things no child should experience. A street boy ministry has been developed for those who have been abandoned. Children, who are victims of natural disaster, eg a tsunami or earthquake, need help. Work is being developed with children in refugee camps part of the tide of human misery we have witnessed in recent years.

Wherever there are children, SU seeks to be there also, often working in partnership with other agencies and local churches to make a difference in their lives.

One of the things I have always loved about SU is that it is a volunteer led organisation. A small number of staff are employed as catalysts to facilitate the work of volunteers, of all ages and all sorts. Yet there is a distinctive SU way of working. I have always been impressed at the way in which they have been able to hold together in a wholesome way, holiness and humour, commitment and common sense, prayer and practical action. These are not common bed-fellows. Many SU volunteers learn about their faith at a residential event (camp or holiday) where there is no division between the God of creation and the God of redemption. God is found in the kitchen and the sports field as much as in the meeting room or the group discussion and there is no division between secular and sacred.

SU’s 150th anniversary

“Wherever there are children, SU seeks to be there also, often working in partnership with other agencies and local churches to make a diference in their lives.”

The Global Assembly in KL marked the end of 13 years of being Chair of the International Council and it was a pleasure to hand over to my successor, Christian Hellwig who is well suited to take the work forward. Alongside him will be a new International Director, Monika Kuschmierz.

SU is in good heart and ready for whatever challenges it will face in the next 150 years.

The Rev Colin Sinclair is minister at Edinburgh: Palmerston Place

This article appears in the February 2018 Issue of Life and Work

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  COPIED
This article appears in the February 2018 Issue of Life and Work