Welcome

“ We hope you enjoy not only a refreshed look but refreshed content as the magazine moves forward on the journey with the people of the Church of Scotland.

WELCOME to our new look Life and Work for 2023.

We hope you enjoy not only a refreshed look but refreshed content as the magazine moves forward on the journey with the people of the Church of Scotland.

Many months of work have gone into this issue and we hope you enjoy the changes – all feedback is very welcome.

Change is never easy. It means an end to the comfortable familiar and all that we have come to know, but change can also result in opportunities to try something new and offers fresh experience of something which may just become that ‘comfortable familiar’ of the future.

The Church is moving through a period of necessary change – and it is likely there will be much more to come.

Rooted in the history books, the structures of the Church have become cumbersome and a burden for the Church of the future. How those structures are unpicked and rebuilt will be a challenge.

If you were building a central Church today to support local churches you would not necessarily choose the systems currently in place – systems which may in the past have prevented change from moving forward.

Unpicking and rebuilding will take time and this work is also necessarily taking place at every level within the Church. The same applies this year to Life and Work. The refreshment of the magazine has involved not only a new design and look but refreshment of content.

Some of the familiar has been retained: editorial, letters, prayer, bible study, monthly news and the Big Picture, but there is much that is new – new writers, new pages dedicated to mission, leadership and worship and regular official updates from areas of the Church’s work, along with revamped puzzles (including the introduction of sudoku) and the return for prizes for our cryptic crossword. A further new feature is our handy dedicated key contacts pages as the Church moves forward on a journey of transformational change. But the heady mix of features and news will continue to remain the lifeblood of the magazine of our Church.

The magazine may feel strange and uncomfortable at first, but please do stick with us as we move forward on our journey and please do share the magazine with others, particularly if you enjoy features.

By the time you receive this, we shall already be working on the third issue of 2023 and I hope you enjoy the fruits of our labour as we move forward into a new chapter. 

Lynne McNeil Editor