Signposts of a Living Faith

Monday December 4 2017

In the final part of his three-part series, the Very Rev Dr John Chalmers explains why radical change is needed to reshape the Church of Scotland to serve in future.

ANALYSIS of past failures is one thing but it is an altogether different challenge to look deep into the future and describe the shape of things to come.

It is particularly difficult in relation to the church, when what is really needed is a transformation so far reaching that the church of tomorrow may bear little resemblance to the church of recent generations.

This is hard for me to say, because the church I have been a part of all of my life still speaks to my spiritual needs

But it’s not the future. What began as a disciple community committed to the way, the truth and the life of Jesus never, in its beginnings, required all of the baggage and paraphernalia which it has accumulated over the centuries.

As I contemplate the future of the church that has meant so much to me I look back with some regret, that too much of my time has been spent arguing over the philosophy, reorganising the institution, fretting about the membership and devising better ways of promoting the enterprise. This has mostly been at the expense of developing that relationship with Christ and at the expense of properly coming to terms with the transformation of life and of our understanding of God which is the far reaching message of Jesus’ ministry.

The real truth today is that at the intersection of the church and real people, living on real streets, the rubber is not hitting the road and the traditional patterns of church life (with which I have been so comfortable) are not going to change that. Only a faith which speaks to the deepest needs of human life will be transformative for both individuals and the communities they belong to.

So, we need to become a church which thinks seriously about how we support the widest possible range of people on their spiritual journey. One size will not fit all, the modern day seeker needs access to worship, learning and prayer 24/7 and the future may be one of deeply committed disciples who may not have much interest in a church with a centralised bureaucracy.

One of the tools for this is now quite literally in our hands. A whole new generation cannot be separated from their smart phones and tablets. In these there is the power to help to sustain people on their spiritual journey and nourish their inner life. The Church of Scotland is already working in this forum; it has opened its first online Church http://www.sanctuaryfirst.org.uk and it is offering a spiritual push to your mobile device every day.

In the earliest days of the Christian Church the apostle Paul advised the religious folk of his day to place less stock on the customs and rituals of religion So, the buildings that we decide to keep, the resources that we decide to develop and the structures that we decide to maintain must, it seems to me, be tested against their capacity for enabling us to be a people who express our faith through love.

Many congregations are already ploughing this furrow, their premises are open every day, they are making a difference to the lives of a whole range of people in their communities, their footfall during the week far outstrips their footfall on a Sunday.

I think that the future will be built around such local centres of activity where people, whose spiritual life, nurtured in very different ways, find expression of their faith in very practical ways.

The purpose of God is not about saving denominations or institutions from extinction and the mission of church is about building communities of justice and peace and love - the Church of Scotland can be a part of that mission or it can drift into irrelevance and obscurity.

This is an abridged version of a feature from December's Life and Work. Subscribe here.

The Very Rev Dr John Chalmers was Principal Clerk to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland from 2010-17, and Moderator of the General Assembly in 2014.