‘Where God has gone before’

In his final meditation, the Very Rev Dr John Chalmers emphasises the importance of transforming the Church of Scotland for the future.

HAVING produced this meditation for the last five years, it is time for me to sign off. Life and Work is changing, and it is time for another generation of contributors to provide the thoughts and insights needed to address the challenges – practical and spiritual – which are facing the life of our Church.

I’ll miss the discipline of the monthly deadline and I’ll miss the exchanges that I have had with people who have either appreciated or questioned the thoughts expressed on this page. The future, however, belongs to those who are on the frontline and dealing every day with the business of reimagining Church life in Scotland. It is my dearest hope that the contributors of the future will continue the tradition of pushing at the boundaries and offering a perspective which demonstrates the relevance of the Gospel in the context of the complexities we face at every level.

The Church of Scotland which fitted comfortably into the life of post-war Scotland, now needs to be transformed in all its parts. The old patterns of our life, from the shape of Sunday morning to the oversized bureaucracy of our brand of Presbyterian government, are of little relevance to the generations missing from our ranks. My great fear, however, is that we are not yet as committed as we need to be to the root and branch transformation which is required.

No one designing a national Church for today would ever construct what we have now and the level of disengagement between the local and the national speaks volumes about how cumbersome and tiresome the whole system has become. I am an advocate for radical change, I don’t think that time is on our side and I am concerned at both the slow pace of change and the reluctance to tackle some of the obstacles – constitutional and legal – that lie at the heart of our structure.

It seems that in some quarters the current round of Mission Planning has been mistaken for a continuation of the old world of Unions and Readjustments or as some kind of economic exercise designed to balance the books. The intention is so much more profound. It is not so much about repopulating our pews on a Sunday morning or about rationalising the use of our building stock, as it is about a transformation of the way in which we engage with the missing generations who, despite our failures, are still searching for meaning, for purpose and for God.

What is disturbing is that while we indulge in church politics, God is present and at work all around us. It is time for us to lay aside some of our treasured buildings, traditions and theological positions and join in where God has gone before. Caring for creation, pursuing equality, diversity and inclusion and working for justice for the poor and marginalised are the work of God, and it is time for justice on these fronts to be vigorously pursued in Jesus’ name.

"The future, however, belongs to those who are on the frontline and dealing every day with the business of reimagining Church life in Scotland."

My friend Albert Bogle, writing in the October edition of Life and Work, reminded us that the Church is a movement and not an institution, and that it gains its passion and power from the presence of the Holy Spirit. If I know anything about Millennials and Generation Z it is that they have little interest in sustaining an institution while they could easily be fired up to be part of a movement.

In this season when the Church contemplates the idea of incarnation I would remind you one last time of the words of Meister Ekhart, the 13th century German theologian and mystic, who said: “What good is it to me, if the son of God was born to Mary 1400 years ago but is not born in my person and in my culture and in my time?”

If we took that challenge seriously what would our Mission Planning look like?