I have just watched a BBC Scotland programme called
A Church in Crisis?
It told a familiar story- empty pews, closed church buildings, shrinking services.
If the Church of Scotland continues to shrink at it’s current rate, it will cease to exist by 2033.
It also asked- ‘Would Scotland miss it if it were gone?’
A bleak programme, offering little hope for the future of the Kirk. As an outsider, I can only sympathise, and hope that there may yet be an opportunity for renewal and engagement with a changing world.
this fragile tent 
It was very bleak, although it gave a sense of trying to be positive. Two things that I reflected upon:
1. a church cannot exist purely on a historical basis, and just because you e.g. started schools, started welfare provision, in today’s world you must re-define and focus upon the spiritual and physical services that you are providing.
2. As a church gets smaller (and I saw this in England) the concentration of firm believers increases as the cultural adherence dwindles. A distillation process maybe? This means the people that do still go tend to buck the straight line graph predictions of decrease, and there is often a stronger appetite for mission, outreach, spiritual growth. But a church must be confident enough to flex and meet people’s needs for worship, encounter etc.
I liked the moderator’s comment that the C of S was a reformed and reforming church, redefining itself all the time. If they really mean it, that may be the key to their future.
But then again, I’m an Episcopalian, so what do I know?
Hi Andrew
And I am currently a ____________ so what do I know too?!
I think you are right about the distillation process. Or perhaps a desperation process! What seems to me to be different about the Scottish experience (as opposed to the English one) are these things (and perhaps they are impressions of the wider church, not necessarily the COS-
Firstly the church (as in the broad church) in Scotland is more sectarian- both in terms of the Protestant/Catholic thing, but also less likely to be have common ground with similar denominational groups. This is my impression anyway.
And the desperation can lead us into two directions- one is to seek to engage with the culture that we are part of- through the ‘Church without walls’ stuff, or through a whole range of things that are very much part of the C of E (albeit with mixed success) or it can lead us to an increasingly dualistic ‘us and them’ attitude. So it is that a dwindling number of people become increasingly divorced from the world about them, and thunder fire and brimstone from a distance. I think there has been too much of the latter- trying to whip up a new revival in order to win souls to our way of thinking.
And finally, the Scottish context has been too driven by ‘truth wars’- more so than I ever encountered in England. We rip into one another because of perceived doctrinal differences, then retreat back into our own bunkers.
However, it is not fair to say that these things do not exist in the presence of lots of good, holy and lovely things that the church is and does…
I am just hopeful that (as you say) the COS really is a reforming church. But as an outsider, I do not see it yet.
I hope I am wrong.
Cheers
Chris