THE concept of tenure for life for ministers is “challenged to breaking point by our changed historical context”, the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland has been told. A proposal for restricted tenure is among the measures being put forward to address what one minister described as a “financial, ministerial, congregational, and denominational crisis”.
The proposal is set out in the annual report of the Assembly Trustees, which warns that the Church is “at a tipping point in terms of its financial viability”. In December, the Church had 245,000 members, representing a 5.5-per-cent fall on 2023, and a decline of 35 per cent over the decade. The operating budget deficit stands at £5.9 million, while the free reserves available to cover the Church’s day-to-day charitable activities totalled £51.2 million at December — about five months of operating costs. A target has been set to achieve a balanced budget by 2027. There have been compulsory redundancies in the Church’s national team.
A target of 600 ministers plus 60 vacancies was unlikely to be met, the General Assembly was told. The chair of the Assembly Trustees, the Revd David Cameron, warned of a “retirement timebomb”: 77 per cent of ministers were over 50, and the actual numbers of retirements and “demissions” continued to surpass initial estimates.
This year, the General Assembly met from 17 to 22 May in Edinburgh. In recent years, it has approved a raft of measures designed to address precipitous decline. The number of presbyteries is being reduced from 45 to around ten. Under the Presbytery Mission Plan Act of 2021, each presbytery must have an approved mission plan in place by January. This will include a proposed total number of ministry posts and be reviewed every five years.
The most recent proposals for reform concern the deployment of ministers. In an echo of a principle at work in Church of England dioceses, the annual report explains that, under the new model, “permission to call a minister” will be given to those congregations able to meet the full cost, although, “with a commitment to a priority to the poor, provision must also be made for those not able to meet the full cost of ministry.”
On the question of tenure, a summary of the Church’s theological forum’s contribution says that “the concept of tenure ad vitam aut culpam, having served the Church well for centuries, is now challenged to breaking point by our changed historical context. Declining numbers of ministers and within congregations, and inadequate funding, necessitate new models. . . Restricted tenure, which can be extended, offers more flexibility to follow God’s leading than unrestricted tenure which cannot be shortened other than by the choice of the minister.”
Stating that two-thirds of “charges” (ministries) are net recipients of the Church’s national giving, it proposes that “the circumstances of each charge should be examined to determine whether, as a matter of fact, the office of parish minister continues to exist in a meaningful way.” Congregations will have to develop, with help, a “realistic scheme” for the payment of their dues or be subject to “mandatory adjustment”.
It proposes that, from 1 June, all charges becoming vacant will be designated as “reviewable. . . the next minister shall be inducted on condition that the Presbytery may terminate the tenure of the minister for any reason which may seem good to the Presbytery.”
“We are having to develop proposals and make difficult choices on staffing, services, and allowances at congregational level with a heavy heart, recognising the challenges that they present to all affected,” Mr Cameron told the General Assembly. The annual report includes a recognition that financial constraints will prevent the Church from reaching its goal of Net Zero by 2030.
The convener of the Faith Action Programme Leadership Team, the Revd Tommy MacNeil, told the Assembly that the Church was “in a financial, ministerial, congregational, and denominational crisis”, describing it as a “Gethsemane moment”. But signs of a “new season of life and growth in local churches” included new worshipping communities, “the quiet revival amongst youth and young adults”, and a new apprenticeship route into ministry.
The Assembly was addressed by Lady Elish Angiolini, the first Roman Catholic to take on the post of the monarch’s High Commissioner to the General Assembly, after a Bill was fast-tracked through Parliament, changing a law dating back to 1689.
Reflecting on having grown up amid “an almost tribal enmity in some parts of Scotland”, she told the Assembly: “I still believe that prejudice and sectarianism can be overcome by that fundamental recognition in us that we are all Jock Tamson’s bairns and by the recognition of each other as the creation of God, requiring the love, forgiveness and support we would all seek for ourselves in all of our imperfection.”
