The Church of Scotland is one of Scotland’s largest charities. The goal of the National Office is to support, resource and serve the Church in its work including the promotion and resourcing of worship, prayer and discipleship; the recruitment, support, training and development of ministers, and staff; engagement with society, the world church and ecumenical partners; theological reflection and creative thinking; delivery of social care; provision of financial and legal services; church law advice and related judicial procedures; and regulatory compliance, audit and safeguarding services.

The Assembly Trustees monitor the activities of the charitable estate to ensure that the church’s work provides public benefit, and this is achieved through the facilitation of the contributions made by thousands of our members who give their financial resources willingly and sacrificially. Our aim is to build and strengthen local congregations as centres of worship, care, nurture, service, witness and mission. As a Church we still have 280,000 loyal members – what an amazing resource. Our challenge is motivating them – how powerful could we be if they were mobilised as champions of the Gospel and focused on the new era of evangelism and discipleship. It is too easy to start off by talking about the money (and shortage of it) and using it as the excuse for being frozen and unable to act. We’ve shown so often when we have a purpose we can fund and achieve our missional goals – it is true that God will provide.

The biggest single expense within the national budget remains paying for ministry at about £35m – this is our main source of inspiration to others and sustaining this is recognised as our greatest challenge. That is where much of our future effort and funding will be targeted. This is also where every member of our church, every leader, every disciple has a role to play. In support of this we recognise the need to invest which is where our new training and recruitment programme comes into play. Then we have Seeds for Growth available to fund new local pioneering and mission activity.

Stewardship is important – not giving the minimum of our time, talent and money to get by but thinking about the narrative of generosity and the difference our actions at every level of the Church can make to our Church and world. As for our existing buildings they are for so many people the most important thing and the fixation – they are to be ‘protected at all costs’ and yet alone they will not be what saves us and maybe will just get in the way of progress in some cases.

The Assembly Trustees are taking actions, as charity trustees must do, to ensure the Church’s financial sustainability but many of these actions are only buying us time. The key question is what sort of Church do we want to be in the future – one that has simply shrunk to fit the available financial and people resources or one that is looking beyond the constraints, buildings and initial mission planning to a world where we aren’t shackled but are free to really reform our church and our ways. The hope is that there will be a transfusion of energy into the missional dynamics of the Church as a whole, whose outward face and core constitution is gradually moulded to a form that will serve the nation in the coming decades in approaches truly engaging with society and culture which currently sees us as irrelevant.

The Rev David Cameron Convener of the Assembly Trustees