‘A new sense of purpose’

FOR those of you have never been, can I recommend a visit to the magnificent Church of the Holy Rude in Stirling, near Stirling Castle?

A marvellous medieval church which served as the parish church for Stirling, it was also the sight of the coronation of King James VI as King of Scots in 1527, at which John Knox preached.

Less significant, but hopefully fruitful nonetheless, was a meeting held by the General Trustees which focussed on the future role of commerce in church life and witness. We learned from case studies in entrepreneurship which included the United Parish of Irvine, St George’s Tron in Glasgow, Greyfriars Church in Edinburgh, and of course the Church of the Holyrood itself.

Each church, set in extremely diverse social locations, has achieved mission and outreach to their community through commercial activity. We were keen to learn from their experiences as we seek to better support to congregations being more entrepreneurial in the use of their buildings, with the dual goal of increasing mission (in all its different forms) and long-term sustainability. Their stories were nothing less than inspiring, and we all need to learn from them.

What all the congregations present shared in common was that they had turned out towards their communities and transformed their buildings from being a place for chiefly congregational use (with the odd let to make ends meet), to moving into partnership with other bodies and interest groups in their communities and facilitating widespread use of their facilities by that wider community. It was not simply a matter of commerce, but rather commerce as a means of changing their congregational focus to the needs of their parishes and communities and finding in that outward focus a new sense of purpose in serving their communities thereby renewing their life as truly ‘parish’ churches.

Going forward with our colleagues in Stewardship and Finance and the Assembly Trustees we want to create an infrastructure that can help congregations move in this direction, where they feel able to. We also hope to create before May 2025 a Hall Lets Toolkit, that helps every congregation discover what it costs to run their buildings and therefore what is a reasonable minimum cost to charge outside bodies for those buildings to remain sustainable in the long term, and also encourages them to survey the local market to ensure they are not undercutting the local market or other churches. This at bare minimum would help us all to ensure we can reinvest and maintain our buildings at a standard so people find them warm and inviting.

Through the extremely painful presbytery planning exercise there is no doubt we have been reminded how important a resource our church buildings can be in our local communities, albeit sometimes too late for them. To avoid this pain again we must work hard to find alternative revenue streams for the maintenance of all our buildings. What these pioneering congregations reveal to us is that with the right skills it is possible to both increase community engagement in our precious churches and halls, and at the same time raise the resources required for their long-term health and benefit.

The Rev Scott Rennie is Vice-Convener of the General Trustees and minister at London: Crown Court.