Union with our Neighbours
As many who follow updates on this site and through the Bulletin magazine and services both online and in person will be aware, our church is at a moment of change.
We offer this vision statement now to bring you up to speed with the thinking of both church ministers, session clerks and steering groups who are working together on our behalf to secure a workable future for all. Please read this statement carefully – it is long but important – and raise questions with Alan or Elaine, or indeed any member of the Session.
REMEMBER: Change does not have to be a bad thing. This union with our neighbours offers the opportunity to grow our community and make new friends.
Since 2018 the General Assembly has been working to develop a Radical Action Plan to restructure the Church of Scotland, essentially downsizing the Kirk. Since then, subsequent General Assembly decisions confirmed the plan to reduce the number of ministry posts across the country by about 40% as well as significantly reducing the number of church properties. This was done partly because of the steep continued decline of church members, declining finances, high costs of maintaining too many old buildings, and partly because the Scotland we live in today has very different patterns of church-going and belief from those of earlier generations. Radical changes had to be made for the Church of Scotland to remain viable and effective.
As a result, each presbytery was allocated an agreed number of posts to be distributed as that presbytery decided, through what is known as the Presbytery Mission Plan. In what was then Edinburgh Presbytery (we have since joined with the Presbytery of West Lothian), the number of ministry posts was to decrease from 78 to 48 – this included parish ministers and ministry support workers such as youth workers, parish assistants and deacons who were funded not by individual local churches, but by the central church. After a lot of hard work and planning, and various Presbytery meetings and Kirk Session meetings, a plan was agreed for the whole of Edinburgh and West Lothian Presbytery. Everywhere across our own presbytery and in every other presbytery is required to make radical changes, not just us.
It was agreed by Presbytery that in our area of Edinburgh, the ministry posts in our local grouping of five congregations – St Andrews Clermiston, Craigsbank, the Old Parish, St Annes, and St Ninians – should be reduced from five to three and a half ministry posts. St Ninian’s, St Annes and St Andrews Clermiston would become a united charge with one minister and a part time ministry support role which could be a pastoral worker or youth worker or whatever they decide is needed.
Meanwhile, and this is the bit that concerns us, our neighbours the Old Parish and Craigsbank were allocated two posts within a union structured as a team ministry. The reason for retaining both posts, contrary to the downsizing impetus elsewhere in Presbytery and the country, is the rapid growth in population in the extraordinary large number and areas of new housing developments to the west of Maybury Road – which will be within our Parish. Therefore, one of the posts would be allocated as a pioneer minister in the vast new housing development while the other post would be as the minister of the united charge of Craigsbank and the Old Parish. So, Alan and Moira would remain in this area, but one would be the pioneer minister in the western expansion, and one would be the more traditional parish minister for the united parish.
How will that work in practice?
Pioneer ministry is a specialist field, asking the pioneer minister to work in an environment that changes every day – new houses, new communities, new habits forming, and being part of that community as a church presence, but not necessarily with a church premises yet to invite people to. Instead, pioneer ministry can mean finding new ways and times of worship such as gathering for meals or groups, growing disciples, forming relationships, working with schools and other groups to support and encourage and build faith. The goal is to form a new worshipping community in due course, but initially pioneering involves building relationships, sensing the work of the Spirit of God amongst the local people, serving flexibly and responsively. For the pioneering ministry to succeed to the west of Maybury requires the wholehearted support of the members of both the current Old Parish and Craigsbank congregations as we go forward in this exciting adventure.
The traditional ministry is more of a known quantity – conducting worship, school chaplaincy, pastoral care, community links over the area currently cared for by Craigsbank, East Craigs and the Old Parish. The minister and teams will continue to make connections, encourage faith, respond to changing times and habits, as well as bringing together two congregations.
Since the beginning of this year a steering group, consisting of six members from each congregation, has met monthly and we have discussed and discerned where we might be being led and what is possible in this new partnership. One of our challenges has been the question of buildings – the five churches in our area grouping have been instructed to dispose of at least one church building, in line with the General Assembly’s general instruction.
Five key areas to look at in detail
Here are five areas our steering group have discussed, provisionally agreed to by both Kirk Sessions, and which we now want to let the wider congregation know about to give you an idea of our direction of travel.
- Alan, the current minister of Craigsbank, becomes the pioneer minister in the western expansion, and Moira from the Old Parish becomes the parish minister of the united parish.
- Two different styles of Sunday morning services will be held every week, one in the Old Parish and one at the East Craigs centre: one service being a contemporary family focused service geared towards the younger (and possibly less ‘churched’) people of our parish, and the other a more traditional service. Each week the venue for these services will alternate.
- Craigsbank church sanctuary and halls would be retained as a basis for missionally reaching out with the love of God to the greater Corstorphine and west of Edinburgh area through performing and creative arts. The halls and sanctuary have already been used for various performances over the years and have even more potential as a community hub serving the greater area creatively. The sanctuary would still be used for united services for the two congregations on the typically four times of the year when there is a fifth Sunday in the month, providing an opportunity for the whole congregation to come together and meet and mingle. It could also be used for some of the larger services to accommodate the whole enlarged congregation, such as Easter Sunday. On this point we recognise there are many challenges involved. Congregations love their own churches because they are so much more than bricks and mortar. They are places where couples have been married, children baptised, and the lives of loved ones celebrated. They are also places where we meet friends and share memories and feel safe. Not having weekly worship in Craigsbank would mean that members there are being asked to make an enormous change in their lives and we do not underestimate the courage that change will bring. Also, having two services in different places at the same time presents its own challenges. People might be tempted to attend what they consider to be ‘their’ church every fortnight when the traditional service is being held there, and to take a week off in between. We hope that will not be the case. Instead, we hope our members see the necessity of change which will lead to growth and find, in travelling between the Old Parish and East Craigs, new fellowship and friendship. There is parking at both East Craigs and around the Old Parish and the number 31 bus stops within a few minutes’ walk of both churches regularly, taking a whole 11 minutes to travel from one church to the other.
- That we commit to reaching out to younger demographic groups in our future parish, without neglecting our current membership. The Church of Scotland has embarked on a national Growing Young campaign over the past few years that we are planning to engage in actively to help us to reach out more impactfully to younger generations and grow our church membership amongst them too.
- There should be a number of working groups to help the new united congregation function. The steering group, proposes that we form new working groups, such as:
- a logistics group overseeing finance, properties, IT and HR.
- a worship group which will help to plan and lead our two different weekly worship services.
- a pastoral group to help visit and care pastorally for our members and parish.
- a mission group, looking out into the parish to share the love of God in relevant ways and to grow disciples of Jesus Christ.
- a social group helping to grow friendship relationships amongst people and to bring the two congregations together.
- a pioneering group (supporting the work in the western expansion).
- a creative arts ministry group developing the Craigsbank buildings into a missional creative and performing arts community hub.
- a Growing Young group to help the congregation grow our ministry to younger generations
These are broad groups which will contain various smaller groups, but these are our ‘starter for ten’ groups which will realise their strengths and needs as they develop and become established. Please think prayerfully about your own skills and interests and where you might offer your help and talents.
The steering group has a remit to produce ‘“’a basis of union as a team ministry’”’, which we hope will be approved by Presbytery by the end of this year. These 5 points of proposals are at the core of the basis of union and team ministry that we want to present to our Kirk Sessions and our congregations. You will then be able to vote to accept or not – before presenting the same proposals to Presbytery by the end of this year.
We will need your help
You might choose to come along to the family style worship where kind, caring, encouraging adults will be needed to welcome younger families to more informal worship, café church or messy church, and this in itself will be a bit of pioneering ministry, a wee bit unknown, but very much needed in our churches where young people are missing.
To establish and develop our shared services, to keep the show on the road, we will need flexible and willing people to volunteer for door duty or tea making, to travel from one place to another and actively meet with people from both congregations. We similarly need volunteers and prayerful support of the pioneering to the western expansion as this is essentially our collective ‘baby’ that needs to be nurtured into existence.
The role of the Elder
Please note that as part of the overall union into a team ministry the two Kirk Sessions will become one, and elders will be tasked with working out how this new church will evolve and develop, building trust and friendship within the church as well as in the community we serve. Elders will be given the opportunity to continue as active elders or to use the opportunity to step back from active service on the Session should they so wish.
You can imagine how much time has been given to these discussions. Elaine and Jane, the Session Clerks from Craigsbank and the Old Parish, have worked together brilliantly to guide and suggest and keep us all on course. Bold and brave decisions have been put forward and graciously debated and accepted. Possibilities are emerging, but we recognize that there is a certain amount of sacrifice, uncertainty and unknown-ness, and a leap of faith required by all of us. When it was first suggested that Craigsbank and the Old Parish merge, Elaine and Jane, Moira and Alan met for a coffee and a chat, and what we all agreed was that although we didn’t know quite what we were going to do and how we were going to do it, the relationship felt right, that we could work together and the steering group has confirmed that. We hope that the Kirk Session and congregation will support and trust those discussions and help this new union and the pioneering ministry to take root and grow.
A very immediate and practical way of being part of the union is helping to choose a possible name for the new congregation – we will be asking for suggestions over the next few weeks, something that reflects who we are and tells people where we are, so get your thinking caps on, please. Please send any suitable suggestions to the office at administrator@craigsbankchurch.org.uk or mention it to Elaine Thompson or Jane Walker by the 9th of September.
Your prayers and gracious consideration in all of this will be most important.
