Moderator Says Guild Should Teach About Love

THE MODERATOR of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland has called for the Church’s Guild and congregations to become ‘schools of love’.

Speaking at the Guild’s annual gathering at the Caird Hall in Dundee and echoing this year’s theme of ‘Go in Love’, the Rt Rev Dr Derek Browning said the US writer Brian McLaren had suggested that one way of helping churches today was for organisations such as the Guild and congregations to become ‘schools of love’.

He said: “Stop and think about it, and I know that many congregations and guilds are doing thousands of other things, but have you every wondered ‘who specialises in teaching people to love?' Who aims to take people at every age and ability level and help them become the most loving version of themselves possible. There is no curriculum of love. We test people’s beliefs before we ordain them, or make them Guild Conveners, or Moderators, but we don’t assess whether they embody the skills and practices of love.”

He added: “When we, as Christians, put love at the top of our agenda, it’s not simply putting a statement on a poster that says: ‘all are welcome’, or a charming graphic on your website, or on a mission statement. We need to ‘weave it into the practices of our community when we gather, Sunday by Sunday, month by month, year by year."

He paid tribute to the Guild’s long-standing commitment to love and justice , recalling his first encounter with the organisation through its centenary project in the 1980s working with drug-addicted prostitutes in Leith and said it had a track record of raising and addressing issues that were ‘uncomfortable and difficult.’

More than 2000 people at the Gathering were joined for the first time in an ambitious technical project by 21 Guilds from the north to south and east and west of Scotland as the Gathering entered the digital age, with Guilds in Fochabers in the north and Kirk Yetholm in the Borders being the first to link in.

More than £500,000 has been raised by Guild members for its six partner projects during the first two years of the three-year partnership. The money raised for the six projects so far is: Ascension Trust (Street Pastors) £95,209.59; Care for the Family (Let’s Stick Together) £84,942.19; Christian Aid (Caring for Mother Earth in Bolivia) £79,730.91; Feed the Minds (Breaking the Cycle of FGM) £110,387.12; Mission International (Haiti Project) £66,588.12 and Prospects (All Friends Together) £72,978.16.

Earlier National Convener Marge Paterson invited outgoing National Convener Rosemary Johnston to provide an overview of the year. In her review, Mrs Johnston appealed to the wider Church of Scotland to engage with the Guild.

“The Guild should be seen as a member of the Church family. I feel that the Church at every level should engage with us. We have a vast range of gifts, both practical and spiritual and intellectual,” she said.

In the afternoon, Dr Pam Cairns, a retired GP who now lives in Carnoustie, offered moving insights into her journey which led her and her husband Alan from Kirkcaldy to travel across the world with the Vine Trust, where she served as volunteer Medical Director of the charity from 2004 and 2006. She and her husband Alan worked to develop and promote the Amazon Hope Medical and Dental Project in the Peruvian jungle.

Dr Cairns, who has since founded the charity The Free to Live Trust to improve the lives of street children and victims of modern slavery, offered some shocking insights of  into the lives of street children, primarily in India. Boys, she said, were abandoned by their mothers who cannot afford to feed them whilst girls could be sold into slavery in the sex industry.

On trafficking, she said: “I thought prostitution was a lifestyle choice but how I have learned over the years.”

There were, according to official figures, 45.8 million slaves in the world, with more than 70 per cent female and the majority under the age of 25.

She said modern slavery was also more prevalent than believed in the UK, but that the Government was helping to lead the way in tackling the problem around the world. 

She also emphasised the need to support anti-trafficking campaigns to make Scotland a 'hostile place' for traffickers, ending with a plea for around the world for ‘more to be done to end this crime that targets and tramples our young people.’

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