In his final column, the Rt Rev Dr Derek Browning highlights the unique selling point of the Church of Scotland.

MODERATOR

AS a student for the ministry I was attached to Hope Park Church, St Andrews for my final placement. Bill Henney was the peerless parish minister there, and the congregation boasted several luminous academics from the University of St Andrews.

The Very Rev Dr Hugh Douglas was associate minister in the congregation, and I learned much from his humorous, gracious and perceptive style. Sadly he died in that year, and his funeral was held in the Church.

It was a large gathering, as bei tted such an eminent servant of the Church.

The great and the good from across the Church and across the country had gathered to pay their respects. After the Church service there was to be a graveside service, and my job was to look after the 91-year-old the Very Rev the Lord MacLeod of Fuinary. Ensconced in a chair upstairs in the church hall, and making sure he had enough to eat and drink, we talked until the mourners came back from the graveside.

It was a highlight of my life, sitting with this great man and listening to his years of experience. I remember him telling me about the challenges of parish visiting. “Don’t ever get caught out by dfficult questions or find yourself with nothing to say. Just ask them, ‘How are you with God?’”

I don’t think I was the only one who received that advice, and it has stood me in good stead over the years of my ministry.

“How are you with God?”, or even more simply, “How are you?” is a deceptively simple question. Many of us will ask it regularly. How many of us stop to listen to the answer?

Don’t let yourself be fobbed of with the unhelpful, “I’m good” response of so many. I suspect most of us are not too closely interested in someone’s claims to moral righteousness, which is probably not what they mean. Nor should we let it rest with “I am well”, or the more prosaic Scottish response, “I’m fine.” I heard a colleague unpack the word ‘fine’ as an acronym for ‘Feeling Inadequate Needing Encouragement.’

“How are you?” is not a throwaway question. It’s a deep question and deserves our close attention. It encompasses a person’s physical, mental and emotional well-being. There’s no point in asking if you’re not prepared to listen to the answer.

Better not ask it all if you don’t want to invest time in the response. “How are you with God?” raises the question to a spiritual level. It is a more dfficult question to ask, particularly in our more secular world.

Even within the family of faith it will cause more than a ripple. Yet for people of faith our spiritual well-being is as important as our physical, mental and emotional state. Indeed, I would suggest for the person of faith they’re all bound up together.

When I ask the question now, I don’t simply say the words, and I don’t simply listen to the answer, I look. I look because sometimes people don’t respond verbally to the question, they respond in other ways.

I’ve asked the question, and people have reached out and held on to my hands. I’ve asked the question and people’s eyes have filled with tears. I’ve asked the question and people have looked away and there has been a long, long silence.

In Jesus’ encounters with people, though the exact words might not have been said, yet their spirit suf uses those moments when Jesus stopped, spoke, listened and looked.

“How are you with God?” raises the question to a spiritual level.

In our screen-obscured, ear-phone festooned, security system shut-of world, people are becoming more and more isolated, and it doesn’t matter whether it’s by decision or default. We lament the fragmentation of society and the loneliness experienced by dif erent generations, whilst continuing to make our world an increasingly solitary experience where community, if it exists at all, is more often than not ‘virtual’. I don’t condemn virtual communities, but I don’t believe they are, in the end, a satisfactory substitution for the real thing. We do need times apart, but we also need face-to-face encounters to remind us that we are human, and created for society.

Churches at their best have the unique selling point of bringing people together, those random families of faith where we can encounter each other, and meet with Jesus. How can we make more of this in our lonely planet?

Oh, and by the way, how are you? How are you with God today?

The Rt Rev Dr Derek Browning is Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland from 2017 to 2018.