A Wee Blether

Due to the generosity of a Columbia Seminary Student Coordinating Council scholarship, last weekend I attended a conference near Edinburgh, Scotland (the scholarship covered my expenses from Ayr, Scotland, not Decatur, GA:) )

As part of my application for the scholarship, I suggested the best way to share my experience with the Columbia community–seeing as I’m still in Scotland–is through the magic of the interwebs, specifically this blog. So here’s my reflections and report. (To you CTS readers out there, please feel free to ask questions in the comments section, or to email me. I’ll do my best to respond quickly either in the comments or through a post, as I realize an in-person presentation on campus would have left ample time for questions.)

Setting the context:

Seven years ago, some good folks in the Church of Scotland brainstormed a vision for a meaningful church movement, one that moved away from a dependency on church buildings–many of which in Scotland are aging and expensive to maintain–and towards a different attitude regarding church. That movement became Church Without Walls.

After some changes in leadership and initial teething problems, the Church Without Walls has taken on several forms, one of which is an annual National Gathering. This year, the gathering was held at the Royal Highland Center near Edinburgh–yes, the place that hosts the largest annual cattle show hosted around 5,000 Presbyterians. (I have to say, we smelled better.)

As a denomination, the Church of Scotland is struggling in terms of membership, leadership, and vision, so I was quite drawn to a conference emphasizing a fresher more agile approach to church. Before attending, various pastors and members shared a wide range of comments regarding Church Without Walls–some said it was too conservative, some said too happy-clappy, some said it didn’t fit the church as a whole, others raved. So I was eager to attend the National Gathering, worship and learn, and discern for myself what the movement is about. Overall, it was disappointing weekend, but there were moments of insight and vitality.

Worship:

Leading worship in an enormous barn is pretty difficult. I attended three worship services, each with a slightly different flavor. Screens and visual projections were used in a variety of ways. Curiously, worship lacked a good flow. For Saturday’s services, songs for gathering morphed into songs for worship, a speaker was introduced, one bible reading was shared–almost as an afterthought–and then closing songs were sung before people left.

Interestingly, not much about the services would key a worshiper into the fact that it was a Church of Scotland conference. For me, the highlight of worship occurred as the first corporate act of the conference (if you don’t count gathering). The congregation sang Psalm 100 a cappella, slowly, and rousingly. When the convener invited us to sing, I thought it was going to be a disaster–5,000 people singing a cappella in a barn? But the result was the highlight of the conference. It’s just a shame it occurred in the first five minutes.

No font. No table. No Bible. No Lord’s Supper celebrated. The organizers seemed interested in fancy fluff like powerpoint slide backgrounds, but would have done well to order a pulpit more substantial than a wobbly music stand. Speakers had little connection with the conference’s theme, and no connection to each other. Judging from the circumstances, organizers seemed content with booking big names rather than thinking through meaningful worship as a whole.

For the first two services, music was led by praise bands (sorry, their names aren’t clear in the program). The first band, did very well leading a variety of songs and hymns, playing at appropriate volume levels, generally enabling God’s people to sing. The second band favored obliteration rather than invitation. Music at the third service was led by John Bell and a few other Iona Worship Group-minded people. In minutes we were singing in three part harmony and our attention was drawn to God rather than to the personality of the leader.

The preachers’ sermons were unconnected to each other, and several were strangely lacking in a clear focus on scripture. It wasn’t clear to me whether they were “preaching” as in the proclamation of the word in corporate worship, or “presenting” as in giving an entertaining trade talk on the topic of the presenter’s choice. I was especially looking forward to hearing John Sentamu, Archbishop of York and recently in the news for cutting up his clerical collar in solidarity with Zimbabweans and in protest of Mugabe. Sentamu spoke well on the meaning of the ascension and the distinction between evangelism and mission. But by the time he left the stage following an impromptu altar call, rude commanding of the music leaders, and self-promoting drumming, I questioned his approach.

Perhaps the most telling part of worship was the invitation to the offering during which Albert Bogle, the chair of the conference planning group asked folks to dig deeply into their pockets and hearts, “Because I blew the budget.” He explained he had spent so much on making this conference happen this year that they had run out of any reserves, and lacked any resources to arrange a conference next year. While this invitation may have been effective, I found it off-putting and arrogant. After already paying my registration fee (many thanks to SCC), I was not for a minute going to give money to a man admitting poor stewardship and making a joke out of it. He never refer to the Planning Group or any sort of communal financial oversight, repeatedly saying “I blew the budget” without any remorse. Furthermore, not even one of the five offerings collected was given to any causes beyond the Church Without Walls organization – rather ironic, I must say.

I don’t mean to come across as negative, but my experience of worship at the national gathering was negative, so I feel I should report accurately. I would have found services that seemed more connected to each other, recognized the Word as that which we gathered around, noted the centrality of the sacraments, and gloried in the diversity that a gathering of such size brought about to be more faithful and inspiring.

Seminars:

Between worship services, a conferee could attend seminars. At each time slot, one of four seminars was offered. I found the fact that only four choices were offered rather interesting, as a conference seeking 10,000 registrants in the PC(USA) would probably offer dozens of seminars. The Scottish organizers knew what they were doing, however, as the average attendance at mine was about 150-200. I’m at a loss to explain this denominational difference, but it may be due to the PC(USA)’s emphasis in all-age Christian Education.

21st Century Discipleship was led by Elvis Elahie, moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Trinidad. Elahie spoke of the difficulties being Christian in a very religiously diverse Trinidad. He presented the theological positions of exclusivism, inclusivism, and pluralism and spoke in favor of a more plurarlistic-minded approach to ministry. Only through partnership with those of other religions, Elahie said, could Trinidadians tackle the culture of crime and violence in their society.

World Without Walls was led by Albert Bogle. Unfortunately, he had prepared a powerpoint presentation but was unable to give it as it was scheduled in a venue not suitable for powerpoint (rather embarrassing for the conference director). Bogle continued off the cuff, however, and explored how he had happened on the idea for World Without Walls, which provides for partnerships between Scottish churches and those in developing countries. It’s a pretty cool project, taking the traditional idea of church partnerships and adding technology to enhance the relationship. The seminar lacked much substance, but I appreciate the aims of the project.

Looking Good, Being Bad from Aidrian and Bridget Plass was not what I expected. They presented a hodgepodge of jokes, banter, and poems written on church, God, and the Bible.

The Dawkins Delusion, led by Oxford Professor Alister McGrath, was a dissection and refutation of Richard Dawkins’ book “The God Delusion.” It was beautiful. With simple powerpoint, McGrath presented difficult philosophical ideas smoothly and well. His basic point was that Dawkins has turned atheism into a religion itself. Though Dawkins tries to back up his ideas with science, they are ultimately questions science can’t answer. After hearing McGrath, I would highly recommend his book “The Dawkins Delusion.”

The Tented Village:

The Tented Village was a big feature of this event, asking congregations to buy a tent and through it to tell the story of the congregation. I’d say it worked pretty well. There were hundreds of tents and most of them were fairly creative. Church members would hand out baked good, or fliers, or sing songs, or show videos, and a number of other ways to invite conversation. The tented village certainly led to a feeling of connection and invited conversation. Visually, it was a cool way of seeing hundreds of Church of Scotland churches represented in one place. Theologically, it reminded us of God leading God’s people out of exile, and of the importance not to become too dependent on one church building.

Random observations:

• One way to know you’re attending a Scottish conference is when it’s lunch break, everyone goes to the field and whips out a picnic. It’s a good thing, too, because the only food to purchase was from trucks like you’d find at the fair – but much less good. Needless to say, I brought a picnic for day two.
• Clear signs are important.
• I can’t remember the last American conference I attended without name tags. The Scots proved it’s possible to be friendly, churchy, and name tag free.
• I appreciated the multiple recycling bins for collecting plastic bottles.
• If you go to the gathering next year, don’t pay any attention to the directions the person at the info desk gives you for the bus stop. Following her directions, I had to climb a barbed-wire fence and jump a stone wall. She was right, though, on the other side of the wall I found the bus stop!

In conclusion, I found the conference illuminating and interesting, but far from inspiring. Attending such a gathering helped me further understand the Church of Scotland, and broadened my perspective of ministry in Scotland. The conference raised more questions than answers about the future of the Scottish church, but they are questions I am glad now to consider. I am grateful to SCC for the scholarship, and thank the scholarship committee for their award.