Guild needs to change says outgoing convener

Lynne McNeil reports from the Annual Gathering of the Church of Scotland Guild.

THE outgoing National Convener of the Church of Scotland Guild has said the future of the organisation depended on making ‘necessary changes’.

Speaking at the Annual Gathering of the Guild at the Assembly Hall in Edinburgh in September, National Convener Helen Eckford from Port Glasgow New Parish Church said: “When God begins to lead us along a new path, we often resist things. When God is leading us to something new we need to summon all our faith and step into the unknown which can be scary and uncomfortable. We need to let go of the old familiar things if that is what God’s plan for us is.”

She added: “We can’t continue to exist in the old. The future of the Guild depends on us making the necessary changes. Changes that we need to make if the Guild is going to survive and if our churches are going to survive… we need to trust and follow God and be prepared to go beyond our comfort zone.”

The Gathering also heard how more than £300,000 had been raised for the six partner projects of the Church of Scotland Guild.

“ This Guild is a beacon to what is possible when people of faith work together.

Support for the projects – Beat (There Is Hope), Pioneers (Spice Island Chocolate Project), Starchild Uganda (a centre for children with learning disabilities), the Vine Trust (the Kazunzu Village of Hope in Tanzania), Home for Good (a charity in Scotland focussing on fostering and adoption) and Unida (Faith in the Future) – will continue until the end of 2024 said General Secretary Karen Gillon.

The total was all the more remarkable as Guilds were not able to meet during 2021 – the first year of the three-year partnership.

More than 900 people gathered in the Assembly Hall, joining around 500 others from across Scotland on a livestream, to celebrate the start of the annual Guild Week and the launch of the new theme – New Wine, New Wineskins.

The Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, the Rt Rev Sally Foster-Fulton reflected on the Guild’s new theme of New Wine, New Wineskins: “It seems to be in the very nature of new things to make space to stretch, to grow and to breathe.”

Paying tribute in particular to the Guild’s support of its partner projects, she outlined her experience of historic Guild support of a Christian Aid Scotland project, where she serves as the charity’s Head in Scotland.

The project supported by the Guild had supported the pioneering the use of solar powered ovens in the Amazon which had since been adapted for use in Malawi and Kenya, she explained.

“Through your encouragement and risktaking support, projects across our global neighbourhood have benefitted. This Guild is a beacon to what is possible when people of faith work together.’

She added: “The Church of Scotland along with other faith communities is facing great change,” and citing the Church’s two declarations to work more closely with the Scottish Episcopal Church and the Catholic Church in Scotland, she said: “Being the body of Christ in Scotland today and tomorrow is going to need our willingness to imagine new spaces and collaborative solutions.”

The Moderator added: “Stretch towards each other, grow in God and breathe in the Holy Spirit that will always send us what we need.’

She presented the Guild with two gifts fashioned by the Grassmarket Project in Edinburgh centring around her theme for the year: ‘Remember Who You Are’ and in turn she was presented with a scarf in the Guild tartan.

Outlining Guild plans for the year ahead, General Secretary Karen Gillon said applications for the new three-year Guild partnerships for January 2025 to December 2027 were due to open.

The number had been reduced from six to four (two at home and two overseas) to reflect changes in the nature and membership of the Guild.

She offered a full breakdown of the totals raised so far for the current six partner projects:

Beat (£52,896.36); Pioneers (£41,193.04); Starchild (£51,920.24); the Vine Trust (46,594.45); Home Good (£70,375.36) and Unida (28,450.17), totalling £301.429.62.

Mrs Gillon said the projects chosen in the new round would be launched in June next year.

During the afternoon session, guest speaker Professor Jason Leitch, the national clinical director of Scotland described how he had received death threats through the post at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Professor Leitch said: “I have seen the best and worst of humankind during this period. I had death threats – bullets and white powder sent through the post.” But as he spoke on a theme of Hope: during and after a pandemic, he said this response had come only from a minority of people.

“I have seen the best in people. People have stepped up to do more than they would.”

Professor Leitch, a regular figure on TV screens at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, urged all present to get vaccinated if they were called for vaccination and paid tribute to the work of the Church of Scotland and CrossReach – the Social Care Council of the Church during the pandemic.

In a wide-ranging address he charted the history of the pandemic – and the hope given by the Covid-19 vaccine and offered an insight into a different kind of hope through the lens of the charity work he undertakes at an orphanage in Repalle, India where youngsters have a chance of education and to and to embrace thanks to the creation of a nursing school on the site.

He also spoke of his own personal faith as a Baptist and said it was ‘one of the reasons I have done what I have done in the last three or four years’ admitted he ‘had not always got it right’, specifically “cancelling Christmas in October 2020”.

In a candid question and answer session he confirmed he and his family had already had Covid-19 – picked up when travel restrictions began to ease.

His address was followed by a musical interlude provided by the Govan Songsters before the office of National Convener of the Guild was handed over to Rae Lind, of Irvine and Kilmarnock Guilds Together, who was installed by her husband, the Rev George Lind.

Innovation was also deployed during Guild Week (which ran from September 9) with two Zoom meetings updating some of the connections and relationships formed by the Guild in Malawi and a second offering sharing welcome updates on previous partner projects supported by the Guild.