June - July 2023
The trustees appreciated the opportunity to meet with many others across the Church during the General Assembly, that annual gathering where, among other things, we come together as the national church.
The trustees met in June, as did our Governance Group. We also, at the end of the month, held an induction and refresher training session for members of the Audit Committee, the Faith Action Programme Leadership Team and ourselves. The aim was to help develop a shared understanding about roles, responsibilities and resources following the changes that have flowed from General Assembly 2019 and subsequent assemblies. We considered topics ranging from the courts of the Church to the Church's status as a Designated Religious Charity, from the role of the Assembly Trustees to how the finances work.
In May the General Assembly agreed a new Church Courts Act. This is a helpful ‘go to' about kirk sessions, presbyteries and the General Assembly: their responsibilities, their functions, the connections between them and practicalities like membership, meetings and delegation of authority. As articulated at our induction session, the members of each court are primarily exercising spiritual leadership, with decisions made corporately working together as part of the Body of Christ.
Also, a key facet in terms of the kirk session and the presbytery is the role of members as charity trustees. The Act provides helpful clarity on this. The role of charity trustees at local and Presbytery level is of relevance to us as Assembly Trustees because one of our roles is to exercise the supervisory function that the Church of Scotland's Designated Religious Charity status requires. We are conscious that for some congregations the burden of administration can be daunting and we are greatly appreciative of all the efforts in this respect. It is so important that the Church is a body in which folk can have confidence, and this means good financial record keeping, knowing how to guard the safety of children and vulnerable adults and so on. As trustees we are indebted to the many departments in the national office whose job includes helping you in congregations and presbyteries to know, understand and carry out the responsibilities of office. There is a directory of services for your use.
At our June meeting, we were joined by Tommy MacNeil, Convener of the Faith Action Programme Leadership Team and we considered the interrelated themes of the extensive use of the Church's reserves, actioning lists of priorities, increasing income (including finding new sources of income), making savings and presbytery development.
The direction of travel set by recent General Assemblies has been for the development of the Church's regional level presbyteries. As the new presbyteries are becoming established, we will be looking at how we can assist with this, through the Principal Clerk. To that end, our next meeting on 10 August will include a discussion session with presbytery clerks to hear from them about the issues they face and what they think a developed presbytery will look like. The Church of Scotland has a vision - to seek to inspire the people of Scotland and beyond with the Good News of Jesus Christ through enthusiastic worshipping, witnessing, nurturing and serving communities. The trustees and others within the Church are intent on discerning and communicating a common understanding and sense of purpose – of a missionary movement where presbyteries and congregations feel empowered to act locally with their own reform agenda.
In our role as trustees we want to encourage missional leadership through the new presbyteries. This means continuing to adjust roles and responsibilities, ways of thinking and ways of doing things. It will take time and significant work. We all have a challenge. Individually we know the positive difference that being a Christian makes. Our challenge is to do better at communicating this in our communities: the inspirational challenge of seeing new life in and through our communities, supported by the national Church.