THE concept of tenure for all times for ministers is “challenged to breaking point by our modified historical context”, the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland has been told. A proposal for restricted tenure is among the many measures being recommend to handle what one minister described as a “financial, ministerial, congregational, and denominational crisis”.
The proposal is about out within the annual report of the Assembly Trustees, which warns that the Church is “at a tipping point when it comes to its financial viability”. In December, the Church had 245,000 members, representing a 5.5-per-cent fall on 2023, and a decline of 35 per cent over the last decade. The operating budget deficit stands at £5.9 million, while the free reserves available to cover the Church’s day-to-day charitable activities totalled £51.2 million at December — about five months of operating costs. A goal has been set to realize a balanced budget by 2027. There have been compulsory redundancies within the Church’s national team.
A goal of 600 ministers plus 60 vacancies was unlikely to be met, the General Assembly was told. The chair of the Assembly Trustees, the Revd David Cameron, warned of a “retirement timebomb”: 77 per cent of ministers were over 50, and the actual numbers of retirements and “demissions” continued to surpass initial estimates.
This yr, the General Assembly met from 17 to 22 May in Edinburgh. In recent years, it has approved a raft of measures designed to handle precipitous decline. The variety of presbyteries is being reduced from 45 to around ten. Under the Presbytery Mission Plan Act of 2021, each presbytery should have an approved mission plan in place by January. This will include a proposed total variety of ministry posts and be reviewed every five years.
The most up-to-date proposals for reform concern the deployment of ministers. In an echo of a principle at work in Church of England dioceses, the annual report explains that, under the brand new model, “permission to call a minister” will likely be given to those congregations in a position to meet the total cost, although, “with a commitment to a priority to the poor, provision must even be made for those not in a position to meet the total cost of ministry.”
On the query of tenure, a summary of the Church’s theological forum’s contribution says that “the concept of tenure ad vitam aut culpam, having served the Church well for hundreds of years, is now challenged to breaking point by our modified historical context. Declining numbers of ministers and inside congregations, and inadequate funding, necessitate recent models. . . Restricted tenure, which will be prolonged, offers more flexibility to follow God’s leading than unrestricted tenure which can’t be shortened apart from by the alternative of the minister.”
Stating that two-thirds of “charges” (ministries) are net recipients of the Church’s national giving, it proposes that “the circumstances of every charge ought to be examined to find out whether, as a matter of fact, the office of parish minister continues to exist in a meaningful way.” Congregations may have to develop, with help, a “realistic scheme” for the payment of their dues or be subject to “mandatory adjustment”.
It proposes that, from 1 June, all charges becoming vacant will likely be designated as “reviewable. . . the following minister shall be inducted provided that the Presbytery may terminate the tenure of the minister for any reason which could appear good to the Presbytery.”
“We are having to develop proposals and make difficult decisions on staffing, services, and allowances at congregational level with a heavy heart, recognising the challenges that they present to all affected,” Mr Cameron told the General Assembly. The annual report features a recognition that financial constraints will prevent the Church from reaching its goal of Net Zero by 2030.
The convener of the Faith Action Programme Leadership Team, the Revd Tommy MacNeil, told the Assembly that the Church was “in a financial, ministerial, congregational, and denominational crisis”, describing it as a “Gethsemane moment”. But signs of a “recent season of life and growth in local churches” included recent worshipping communities, “the quiet revival amongst youth and young adults”, and a recent apprenticeship route into ministry.
The Assembly was addressed by Lady Elish Angiolini, the primary Roman Catholic to tackle the post of the monarch’s High Commissioner to the General Assembly, after a Bill was fast-tracked through Parliament, changing a law dating back to 1689.
Reflecting on having grown up amid “an almost tribal enmity in some parts of Scotland”, she told the Assembly: “I still consider that prejudice and sectarianism will be overcome by that fundamental recognition in us that we’re all Jock Tamson’s bairns and by the popularity of one another because the creation of God, requiring the love, forgiveness and support we’d all look for ourselves in all of our imperfection.”
