The Union of Craigsbank and The Old Parish

Presented by Elaine Thompson at Stated Annual Meeting, East Craigs Centre, 27 April 2025

At the last Stated Annual Meeting I explained the reasons behind the Church of Scotland’s decision to merge parishes and reduce the number of buildings it is responsible for – declining Church of Scotland membership, less people worshipping  reduced offerings and not enough ministers to serve the current parishes. 

Under the Edinburgh and West Lothian Presbytery Mission Plan, we were instructed to have a church union with Corstorphine Old Parish with 2 full time ministers of word and sacrament.  The reason for two ministers is that one should be the parish minister to the newly merged congregation and the other a pioneer minister to the ever-expanding new developments to the west of Maybury Road.  In January 2024 the joint steering group of Craigsbank and the Old Parish was set up.  The Craigsbank members are Alan Childs, Alan Kennedy, Mike Brough, John Baker, Susan Ross, Paul Spencer and me.  We have been meeting with representatives of the Old Parish every month to work out the best way of bringing our two churches together. 

St Andrew’s Clermiston, St Ninian’s and St Anne’s were instructed to have a 3 way union with 1.5 ministerial posts. Unfortunately the union of the other Corstorphine churches has not gone smoothly. In the process there have been votes taken by the congregation and by the Session of St Andrew’s about possible dissolution, but agreement has not yet been reached about the best way forward.

The Presbytery Plan also stated that there were too many church buildings in the greater Corstorphine area and that one of the buildings should be released.  All the buildings in the greater Corstorphine area were then assigned as category B which meant that any one of them could, in theory, be released.  Presbytery’s Deployment Group proposed that the buildings of St Andrew’s, Clermiston should be the one to be sold, but Presbytery voted against it.

Our two congregations’ steering group was sympathetic to the plight of St Andrew’s but, after much discussion, it was agreed that we should focus on the union of Craigsbank and the Old Parish which includes the instruction and opportunity of pioneering to what is likely to become a sizeable development with more than 25 000 residents, including four new schools, all to the west of Maybury Road. 

Part of the remit of our Craigsbank and Corstorphine Old Parish churches’ steering group, is to consider – in conversation with the two Sessions – how best to proceed with our union. This is not always an easy task and compromises will need to be made. We have a plan which will be formally stated in a document called the Basis of Union. This needs to be approved by Presbytery’s Deployment Group, the national Law Department, the Clerk of the Church of Scotland – before it can formally be put to both our congregations simultaneously to vote on. After which our Presbytery also needs to accept it. John Baker and Paul Spencer have created a timeline but it is difficult to assign dates when we are waiting for approval from the deployment group, law department and presbytery.  The occurring of the General Assembly, followed by summer holidays, and the continued unification complications requiring attention at our neighbouring congregations, are all likely to defer the date of the union towards the end of the year. An announcement regarding the date of the vote will be read out at church on the preceding two Sundays.  The vote will be arranged by the Deployment Group.   Church services will remain as they are, at least until the union is formally approved and the union starts to take effect.  

As part of our unification process, various teams comprising members of both congregations are being formed and starting to work together to facilitate the greater collaboration in the carrying out of the day to day running of our two churches.  For instance, the Property, Finance and HR Team are meeting regularly and working on budgets and contracts.  The Social and Mission Team have met up and have agreed to collaborate on a Christian Aid coffee morning to be held at Craigsbank on Saturday 10 May 2025 from 10.30 – 12.30.  There will also be some walks planned and a quiz night at the Old Parish in the autumn.  The Pioneering Team meet monthly and have already started reaching out west. The Young Family Ministry Team is forming with an eye to participating in the national Growing Young project and already collaborating on summer holiday clubs. We are looking for volunteers to join these and other teams, such as the Communications and Technology Team, the Creative Arts Ministry Team and the Worship Team, so please consider joining one or more and please do ask for more information.