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There’s been quite a focus on membership statistics lately – you may have seen some material in the Sunday Times last week on this. The press are fascinated by the idea that churches are in irretrievable decline. I don’t think it’s as simple as that.

I began by talking about a visit to our congregation in Comrie:

Let me begin by telling you a story. Last week I spent most of a day with our congregation in Comrie – just to the west of Crieff. It could be many places across our church – this happens to be one I know about. I went as part of the follow-up to their Mission Action Planning process. I went out and about in the community with members of the congregation – met the Comrie Development Trust at the old Prisoner of War camp, visited local business, met the First Responders. I had a meeting with the Vestry and then they invited a wide range of people from the community to come in and meet me. Like many of our congregations, Comrie is small. But hey have become more outward-looking, they talk about things and they are ready to try new things. ‘Art and Soul’ Days see up to 30 people passing through the building to explore meditation in the context of art. Milestones Services encourage people – many not church members – to mark key life stages in the context of worship. Special Services – for example at Christmas – can see up to 80 people in the church. The regular worshipping congregation has moved from a low of around 13 to a more regular 18-20.

We are discussing this at various points throughout our Synod. You can read the whole of what I said here

We began our General Synod in Edinburgh today.

Stuart Muir, who is Pastoral Musician at our Cathedral in Dundee, created the usual wonderful and very congregational music for the opening Eucharist.

This is how my Primus’ Charge began:

‘The Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you.’

When you read the Synod papers – if you read the Synod papers – you will have found yourself immersed in words and figures, information about what our Boards and Committees have been doing, challenges which face us in our membership, in training, in mission, in pensions, in human sexuality questions and many more. The question is whether that is business – just business – or whether the Spirit continues to remind us of all that Jesus has said to us. It is either ‘things that we do’ or ‘things which lead us to think about Jesus and his teaching.’

You can read the whole text here

I was in All Saints on Sunday morning. It’s a place where generations of students have ‘discovered’ the Catholic tradition in the Scottish Episcopal Church. I’ll never be a natural at this – too many years with flowers in the centre of the altar – oops – call that Communion Table.

Anyway I did bring a script – particularly in honour of the Pope who does unscripted homilies. Problem for Latin types – and I suppose Irish – is that once the tap is turned on and the words are flowing, almost anything can happen. The Pope went refreshingly off piste when he suggested that there might be space for non-Catholics and even atheists in heaven. Fortunately the minders were able to get the gates firmly shut again – extra ecclesia and all that.

You can read about it and, more importantly, what it takes for the church to survive and thrive …. here

I think it is really important that we are present as a church in communities like Alloa. Our congregation there is tenacious and resourceful. They have had more than their share of difficulties. But they remain deeply committed to their common life. Of all of our congregations, they are more committed than most to community engagement.

The church has just closed for the rest of the year for renovation work on the stonework. This is to get right was wasn’t right in previous work which was done – so huge work has gone into attracting grants and other funding to secure the future of the building.

So I met the Church Council in the building – altar boxed in like the Ark of the Covenant and everything shrouded in heavy plastic. And we talked – not about the building – but about to develop their future in mission and ministry

I haven’t done ‘Scotland is a remarkable place’ thing for a bit. This is a random drift of bluebells beside the road on my route to Comrie last Sunday.

Of course there is another less welcome dimension to Perthshire rural roads at this time of the year. To get the photo, I had to risk the bikers who are magnetised to this area – and the mobile speed cameras which are here in force to try and keep them to safe speeds

Another Thought for the Day this week – this time a reflection on the Iona Celebrations of the 1450th Anniversary of the arrival of St Columba

‘Always wanted to go there … special place … on my bucket list’ Those were some of the reactions on Facebook when I said that I was going last weekend to Iona for the celebrations to mark the 1450th Anniversary of St Columba’s arrival. It’s a special island. George MacLeod, founder of the Iona Community, said that it was a ‘thin place’. He meant that it is a holy place – where earth and heaven, the mundane and the spiritual are very close. People of all kinds – of all faiths and none – feel it.

To read the whole script ….

When you say that you are going to Iona, people always say how much they would like to go. I’ve lost count of my visits now – but it never fails to work its magic on me. This was the Celebration of the 1450th Anniversary of the arrival of St Columba on the island. I carry an etching of his voyage on the back of my pectoral cross so I am connected with it.

Bishop Kevin and I decided that we needed to make ourselves visible. It was remarkable – people just wandered up and talked. They came from all over the world ..

This is a peep through one of the new windows in the Chapel at Bishops’ House which I dedicated a couple of years ago. You can just see the Calmac ferry ..

And this is Bishops’ House with its new extension. It’s a residential centre and is part of the ministry of the Scottish Episcopal Church on the island.

It was a remarkable gathering – full of Irish connections of course. This is Susan Conlon, Irish Consul in Scotland

And these are our friends in the EMU partnership of churches – Revd Lily Twist of the Methodist Church and Revd John Humphries of the United Reformed Church

And it was a great pleasure to meet Inderjit Bhogal, Leader of the Corrymeela Community of Reconciliation in Ireland – which of course has very close links with the Iona Community.

It’s been a weekend of anniversaries for us – 1450 years since the arrival of St Columba on Iona – of which more tomorrow. We started with a Dinner to celebrate 150 years of Lay Readers in the Scottish Episcopal Church.

It’s the kind of anniversary which could slip by without anybody noticing – so thank you to Sue Whyte and her friends for deciding to mark it and inviting Alison and myself to join them. There were 26 of us in all.

I’ve had the privilege of taking part in the two Lay Reader Conferences which we have had. I always have the same reaction to the people I meet – not the usual suspects whom I meet hanging out around the GSO. This is a different set of people – passionate about their ministry and service and immersed in the life of the congregations in which they serve. This anniversary also reminds us that lay ministry is not the new-fangled stuff which we sometimes think it is – our Lay Readers are part of a strong tradition of lay ministry which has complemented the ministry of clergy.

And one more thing. This is not an easy option. Today’s Lay Readers do a minimum of two years of our TISEC course and many do three. They carry out placements and experience different contexts of ministry. In short – not an easy option. Thank you to all of them

Since this is a sort of pilgrimage, we thought we would start with Tobermory Cat – whom you can find on Facebook any time. But a quick look at the daunting distances from Craignure – 21 miles to Tobermory and 37 in the other direction to Fionnphort – suggested that we didn’t have time. So this picture will have to make do.

So we are now in a nice warm B&B looking across at Iona and looking forward to the celebrations tomorrow

We are off to Iona this morning with Bishop Kevin and Elspeth for the 1450th Anniversary of the arrival of St Columba. Iona is one of my favourite places and I am fascinated by the reaction of people when it is mentioned. George MacLeod’s comment that it is a ‘thin place’ is obviously well understood – meaning, I think, a place where the veil which separates earth and heaven is particularly thin.

Which leads me to the article I read this week in the Alban Institute material about the SBNR group – Spiritual but not Religious. That’s very much of our [post-modern] times – people do not ‘do’ religion but they perceive themselves as being spiritual and interested in spirituality. That shapes into a challenge – which is how ‘organised and institutional’ religion can engage with such people. I think that much of Casting the Net is actually about that – the Mark of Mission which is ‘worship which renews and inspires’ is about the aspiration to produce worship which has a helpful ‘thinness’ about it.

And I can’t help make a comment about current thinking on Hospital Chaplaincy in the NHS – certainly in the unhelpfully radical form in which we experience it here. There seems to be spiritual care – which can be delivered by almost anybody – and there is religious care which is perceived as being what churches do. When I suggest that what churches do – and what my own long experience in hospital chaplaincy was about – is spiritual care for SBNR people with an absolute minimum of formal/organised/institutional content, there doesn’t seem to be an answer.