Life & Work Magazine
Life & Work Magazine


4 mins

Christian celebrants

The Very Rev Albert Bogle calls on the Church to revisit a decision that allows only ministers to conduct weddings and funerals.

COMMENT

I READ with interest the various articles that appeared in the Herald a few months back highlighting the increase in humanist and non-religious weddings. In fact the Humanist Society were quick to point out that they had overtaken the Church of Scotland by conducting 117 more weddings than the Church had in 2017.

While the article grabbed a headline it had to go on and point out that while the Humanist Society boasted of their increased numbers of 3283, across all the religious groupings in Scotland 6400 weddings were conducted and the bulk of that figure was, in fact, Christian weddings.

This got me thinking. One reason for this increase is that the Humanist Society are not afraid to advertise their services. They have worked hard at making it easy for a couple to find a Humanist Celebrant to conduct a wedding. And of course they have been quick to promote their services to funeral undertakers, who often find themselves challenged as to who is responsible for a parish when looking for an instant fix to arrange a funeral. So while there is little doubt that fewer people seem to require Christian rites of passage, I think it may be exaggerating the reality to assume that Scotland is becoming a convinced secular nation.

Perhaps we need to become more proactive when it comes to making people aware of the services the parish church offers the community. Yet in doing so we may find that we are unable to fulfil all that we would like to promise, simply because we no longer have the personnel to fulfil the potential demands that an advertising campaign would bring to the local parish church.

At present many of our ministers and deacons and elders are being swamped by the demands placed upon them, especially to conduct funeral services. In a recent blog posted on the ‘Reform The Church of Scotland’ website Robert Allan, in an article written as an open letter to the Falkirk presbytery clerk entitled ‘Up the Rebels’, suggests that the time has come for ministers to say to Presbytery, “enough is enough.” He suggests that while it may be highly desirable for ministers to conduct every funeral in their parish it is no longer possible or tenable, especially if they are being required to take on additional work as Interim Moderators. The rise of vacant charges has meant that many ministers and elders are overwhelmed with the responsibilities of additional large parishes where there is little local leadership. It is because of this crisis that others are stepping in to fill the gap that has come about. So is there an answer to all this?

One solution would be for the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland to agree that presbyteries could appoint Christian Celebrants to conduct weddings and funerals and to offer training to such people to enable them to pastorally counsel and support those who are in need of Christian rites of passage. If such people were in place and able to attend wedding fairs I’m convinced that more people would be opting for a church service. Read Lorna Cargill’s interesting blog at Sanctuary First as she explains how she eventually changed her wedding plans from having a Humanist ceremony to a Christian ceremony. (See sanctuaryfirst.org.uk/blog/article/bride-dramas)

In order to appoint the right people, as

Christian Celebrants, with the appropriate skills and gifting I believe we should be willing to reconsider our long held view that parish funerals and weddings should be conducted without remuneration. This of course is a misnomer, because ministers are being paid by the congregation to carry out these parish pastoral services, the organist is paid as is often the church officer.

Perhaps we need to become more proactive when it comes to making people aware of the services the parish church offers the community.

I am convinced that we have the gifts within the Church of Scotland to be able to support our hard pressed ministers by offering additional support to parishes, thus creating opportunities to create pastoral teams that could work across presbyteries, creating opportunities to create effective pastoral care to those who live in our parishes.

In doing so we would be freeing up our ministers to begin to take seriously their roles as leaders within their congregations rather than being dictated to by the tyranny of the urgent at the expense of the important.

Don’t misunderstand me, pastoral care and funeral ministry is an essential ingredient within the compassionate ministry of the church but it need not always be placed in the domain of the minister.

The Very Rev Albert Bogle is a Pioneer Minister of Sanctuary First Church Online at www.sanctuary/first.org.uk

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

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