A church structure that hinders rather than helps outreach and mission. The need to make Christianity relevant to 21st century experience - it seems the challenges facing the church in Aotearoa New Zealand are the same on the other side of the world. Rev Dr Frank Bardgett writes for sPanz about current Scottish initiatives.

Writing on the conversion of barbarian Europe during the first Christian millennium, Richard Fletcher once suggested that the creation of the parish system about a thousand years ago cut short what had previously been a rapid development of churches and settlement of priests. The parish, in effect, tied Christian congregations into a fixed geographic structure surrounded by taxes and canon law: the system became very difficult to change as "lawyers and bureaucrats" erected obstacles "to thwart lay and local initiatives."

The parish system remained difficult to change. 18th and 19th century Scotland invented 'Home Mission' and appointed missionaries, ordained and lay, in both vast rural parishes and for the new urban populations of the Industrial Revolution in order to circumvent the legal difficulties that hindered the creation of new congregations for new circumstances.

The existing structures of the Church can still operate as a barrier to mission in the rapidly changing circumstances of the 21st century. How should the church react when large new housing areas or new business or industrial estates with hundreds of employees can be built in the space of a few years? The age structure of a parish can change considerably: 25% of the population of the Broomhouse area of Edinburgh (according to the 1991 census) was under 16, with an increasing number of single-parent families. The gathering-places of contemporary Scotland now include large scale shopping malls and ever larger hospital complexes.

Meanwhile, congregations can continue with traditional programmes and a way of being church suited to an older generation, and find themselves incapable of tackling such new developments on their doorsteps. In an attempt to wake the church to opportunities it is missing, a Special Commission on Review and Reform reported to the 2001 General Assembly, advocating 'A Church without Walls'. "Presbyterianism has become a form of institutional distrust" wrote the Special Commission, thinking about the continuous round of committees and reports. Interestingly, they also said that very often it was not so much procedure that held back progress as the inability of the people involved to relate to and to trust each other. Neighbouring congregations can so often be rivals rather than colleagues.

<typohead type=4>Tackling the Issue </typohead>

How, then, has the Church of Scotland been tackling the issue of existing structures holding back mission? What procedures are being used to facilitate a Christian response to contemporary society? Who are today's 'Missionaries'?

New procedures have been agreed for church-planting from scratch. The New Charge Development Committee [NCD] of the Board of National Mission, together with local presbyteries, can designate a new area of housing where no church exists or take over an existing parish in which all the traditional institutions of the Church are abandoned. For such an NCD charge, the national

New Charge Development committee appoints a minister, who works initially without a kirk session or financial board and very likely without a church building. Where an NCD is created from the basis of an existing congregation, that congregation and its existing structures are dissolved and the normal supervision of presbytery withdrawn in order to allow a new ministry to develop free from preconceptions and able to respond to the needs of the area and the congregation that slowly gathers.

So in Perth (population 45,000) the creation of the NCD charge of Riverside has seen the abandonment of the old city centre church building and congregation of St Andrew's and St Stephen's, and the appointment of their minister to begin again in the middle of an established housing area that had been on the margins of the previous parish boundary. Little of the patterns of worship or congregational life have been carried from one place to the other - indeed, to begin with the congregation met for worship in the local school. The national committee, however, has now endowed the charge with a new church building with meeting rooms, café facilities etc to allow for a process of evangelisation based from within the community rather than without, and be responsive to local need.

At present nine full NCD charges exist. Their ministers are appointed to grow new congregations and plant new churches by the development of personal relationships; their calling is particularly stressful and difficult as well as rewarding. Known structures - session and session clerk, presbytery and presbytery superintendence - can provide safety as well as preconceptions, and removing traditional assumptions can lead to insecurity.

<typohead type=4>Ministry Teams </typohead>

One assumption increasingly challenged in Scotland is that full-time ministry is best left simply to Ministers of Word and Sacrament, with the Diaconate. Kirk sessions have always had the option of making their own appointments if they can find the funds, and ministry teams are now seeking to include a youth worker, a Community /Parish Development Worker or a Faithshare appointment from the world church. Where congregations cannot afford extra staff (as in Urban Priority Areas they cannot) then National Mission's Parish Assistance Committee can sometimes recruit or appoint to additional posts.

The Star Project in north of Paisley thus covers an area shared between two existing parishes - but distant from the two parish churches. With a Project Worker responsible to a management committee including both ministers and people from the local community, the aim has been to "promote education, social welfare, religious awareness and an enhanced quality of life". Rather than another church building, ground floor flats were acquired in which an Advice Centre, quiet room, drop-in café and playroom have been based. This and other similar locally-based projects display a Christian spirituality that emphasises community, advocacy, hospitality and service. Examining 'The Star' and a number of other such projects for the 2002 Assembly, the Panel on Doctrine wrote that the lesson they ask the church is "How well does the local church know those with whom it wishes to share the Gospel? How much does it love them?" Part of the cost of incarnating love certainly includes the need for Ministers of Word and Sacrament to allow the wider mission of the congregation to be shared by others with other training.

<typohead type=4>Chaplains </typohead>

Ministers are, however, in demand as full time chaplains to hospitals and to Scotland's prisons, as the Health Trusts and the Scottish Prison Service increasingly recognise the value of spiritual care and fully fund the posts. A small number of chaplains have been appointed to shopping malls, their staff and customers.

The challenge facing the Kirk's congregations is to remain relevant, outgoing, engaged and listening while culture and society change around them. Outside the traditional structures, mission still often flourishes thanks to lay and local initiatives. The challenge facing the Kirk's central boards is to facilitate and not obstruct, such opportunities.

Rev Dr Frank Bardgett is Parish Staffing Administrator for the Board of National Mission of the Church of Scotland, and has published a number of books and articles on the Church history of Scotland. He can be contacted at Fbardgett@cofscotland.org.uk