On Tuesday and Wednesday of this week I was in Sutherland and Caithness. I am a member of a Special Commission set up by the 2008 General Assembly to consider the Third Declaratory Article. This is the part of the Church of Scotland's constitution which commits the Church to deliver the ordinances of religion and carry out ministry in every part of the country. The Commission is set up to see if we can still make that commitment and what it means to the Church if we say that we can.
Anyway, we decided to make some field visits and in March we visited Glasgow and this week we visited Sutherland and Caithness, 2 counties on the geographical fringes of Scotland where the Church is struggling to find ministers willing to serve. Caithness has 11 charges, where ministers can serve, plus a community minister post; there are 3 of these charges filled. Has God stopped calling people to these places and communities? Or are people deaf to His call?
Wednesday was a strange morning! I spent 17 years as a minister in Caithness; our children were all born there and grew up there. We left in July 2000 to come to Juniper Green. I've only been back in the county a couple of times since we left, this being the third. I met some people that I've not seen since I left and I was visiting places I knew well, though not the part of Caithness in which I was the minister. It felt strange to be back. I have no desire to go back; the road north hasn't changed very much; it still takes 6 hours to drive; I was glad to be back home on Wednesday evening.
We have a funny attitude to the past at times. I know people, even Christians, who want to live in the past. Their past experience of Church was very positive so they want to keep hold of that for as long as possible and live in that past experience; so Churches are not allowed to change anything. We have all heard the cry 'It's aye been done that way! Let's live in the past.' There are others who want to write off the past: it's old, so it must be got rid of! There are churches who refuse to sing anything that is older than 6 months; every hymn or song has to be new & constantly changing; the past is a real foreign country.
I enjoyed much of my ministry in Caithness, although I came to the point where I was glad to leave behind the stresses and strains it caused me. I'm glad when the people I knew there come to visit us here. But I won't live in the past and pretend it was some rural idyll to be hankered after. Some commission members thought that going to rural Scotland would be wonderful and quiet; they left with a different view, now aware of the distances involved in travelling between Churches and the huge areas to be covered by one person.
As Christians we honour the past: our faith is based on historic events that took place once for all time in a specific historical time and place; our churches today are what they are because of previous generations faithful witness. But we press on to the future, to grow as Christians and to build the Church today that will leave a legacy for tomorrow. It seems to me that is a biblical way of looking at time, history, our past, present and future.
