LETTERS

Recruitment response

Many will share the concern of the writer, C M O’Brien, who last month raised the issues of recruitment to our national ministries. Both the Assembly Trustees and the Faith Action Programme articulated this as a top priority at the General Assembly of 2023, with the new Apprenticeship Ministry Route also highlighted. This new route will bring the acceleration and greater accessibility to the training for our ministries which your reader desires and the church requires. Much also is being done to review and renew our recruitment strategy by the new People and Training Group, which will bring to the General Assembly of 2024 a number of additional revisions to the present ways we recruit and train. Integral to this is the work we launched in August – the Church of Scotland Learning platform. For the challenge of recruitment is not just for the national church to address this concern. At root, we are all called to serve, be it in our local context or in a national ministry. Many of our future ministers are already being nurtured within local congregations and need the prayerful encouragement of those around them to help them step out to explore what God might be calling to be and do.

We will bring you a fuller update in a planned feature in October/ November Life and Work and have a number of new initiatives planned for this coming year, including a Toward Ministry event which took place in St John’s Church in Hamilton on Saturday August 26. For more information please contact ministries@churchofscotland.org.uk.

We look forward to working with congregations and presbyteries to help them explore further what a changing church requires from us. Together, we can grow not just the number of our ministers, but the church itself.

Bill Wishart (Rev), Vice-convener, Faith Action Programme

Listening

Ruth Harvey in the July edition of Life and Work makes the case for the effort to be made in the composition of good questions. There is an old saying, reportedly originating in ancient Egypt: ‘Speech is silver and silence is golden’. However, it is said that mankind only started to make major advances in evolutionary progress when it learned the art of conversation .

A good question merits a good answer. However, the standard of an answer is heavily dependent upon another important factor and that is the extent of the listening applied by the person who is expected to respond. There is much more to listening than simply lending someone your ears, as once exhorted by Mark Anthony.

Simon Sinek , the author and inspirational speaker, once observed ‘Listening is not understanding the words of the question asked , listening is understanding why the question was asked in the first place’.

Ian W Thomson, Lenzie

Pulpit supply

With reference to Duncan C McGhie’s letter in the August edition regarding the directive from the General Assembly to increase payments for Pulpit Supply, I wish to highlight a different slant on the matter.

The increase of 66.7% discriminates against charges in a vacancy, like ours, where we have to pay Pulpit Supply on a weekly basis. This drain on the resources of a small rural charge is considerable, to say the very least.

\Ken McFarlane, Perthshire

Open churches

On holiday recently in Anglesey I came across an attractive medieval church in the village of Llanfechell. It was open to visitors with explanatory leaflets available describing the church’s history and current activities. This will be an unremarkable observation to anyone who has holidayed in rural areas of England.

I live in Eaglesham. Our church, like that in Llanfechell, is a sanctuary with no attached office or hall buildings. It does not have quite the same long history but does date from the 18th century and is similarly both the spiritual and historical centre of the village. Recently our Kirk Session considered a plan to leave the church open to visitors – initially advertised on a trial basis of six hours one day a week. It would be unattended as is the practice elsewhere. Insurance was a major consideration and unfortunately the advice from CofS Insurance Services was that this is not something they or an insurance company would recommend.

This naturally has dampened enthusiasm for the open church plan.

As a national Church we are in the midst of a difficult discussion of how best to reach out to that majority of our fellow Scots who increasingly have no contact with religion. In that context it is perhaps unfortunate that in many communities the building most associated with faith is typically open for one hour a week on a Sunday morning. The view of Ecclesiastical Insurance, who are responsible for most Church of England buildings, is interesting... Keeping churches open outside of services of worship is a key element in the link they have with the community they serve.

Would leaving our church open with appropriate information about its history and current activity attract interest from locals and visitors? I don’t know. But perhaps the Scottish practice of leaving all churches firmly locked is worth review.

Duncan MacIntyre, Eaglesham

Union frustration

I write in utter frustration at the unwillingness of the Church of Scotland at ANY Level, to listen to the voice of its members, surely the privilege of Presbyterianism! We know fully that due to shortages of ministers, churches are being asked to share... fair and necessary. BUT why are perfectly viable churches, in our case, the ONLY church in a thriving community, sitting as it does under the shadow of the ancient Sweetheart Abbey, a Christian presence since the 13th century, being forced into unions, with all the loss of autonomy this entails, with town churches miles away?

The effect of this, as has been proved before, will not preserve churches or congregations but lose them as people will not travel miles to worship in communities in which they have no relationship whatever.

I naively believe that the purpose of the Church is outreach and mission, to create and nurture Christian communities. Why is it so hard to allow us to begin with links for agreed trial periods? This would at least retain the goodwill and co-operation of congregations involved. Forced marriage is against all sensible thinking. How many other congregations feel the same? I am sure we are not alone.

Liz Mack (Rev), Dumfries

Glossary commendation

It was encouraging that the Jewish-Christian Glossary received a warm reception from the General Assembly.

While dealing with 17 different themes, which are so important for both Jews and Christians, interestingly they also set out what they would particularly wish to say to the other.

When it is recognised that some of those who will be reading these findings are Jews and Palestinian Arab Christians in Israel/ Palestine, it is clear that themes such as the Chosen People, the Covenant, the Promised Land, justice and Zionism have high significance for them.

We are not surprised to discover that many of the terms used are understood in a variety of ways in each of the religions, and this does hold out hope that, if and when a serious attempt is made at peacemaking in the Holy Land, a basis can be found here for conversations, which can make for greater understanding.

The work required to produce this document has clearly been thorough and painstaking. The length of the document is daunting, but for those who want to promote peace between Jews and Christians around the world, this can be an immensely helpful resource. The authors don’t avoid the controversial issues. A couple of extracts may illustrate this:

“Today Zionism is broadly defined by Jewish people as the right to a homeland in Israel within secure borders. Today some of the fiercest critics of Israeli government policy can be found in Israel. They would take deep exception to those who would seek to deny this right, particularly after the Holocaust.” Christian Palestinians also have deep roots in the holy land. Under the section of the report on Justice, attention is drawn to what is happening to Palestinians today. “Christians can often be frustrated when they share stories from what they see and hear about life in the West Bank or Gaza in order to point out injustices, be they attacks from settlers or the lack of freedom of movement, to find they are accused of antisemitism.“ There is much more, and all who are concerned about the conflict in Israel/Palestine would do well to read this Glossary. The document can be read online under the Church of Scotland website, General Assembly 2023, Reports, Additional Reports, A Jewish-Christian Glossary.

Graeme Brown, Edinburgh