There are to be three Presbyterian Assemblies in Edinburgh next week – the place will be filled with several hundred Church of Scotland ministers and elders, 80 plus Free Church and in theory the same number of Free Church Continuing. Yours truly will not be present as the Free Church operates a representative assembly which means that a minister usually only gets to go once every three years. (Now if I was in the FCC I would have the privilege of going every year – must get my membership application…)

Let me make a prediction. Every one will have a ‘good assembly’. The Church of Scotland will speak of decline but also of how there is new life in the Church. The Free Church will speak of decline and of new life. And the FCC will speak of how they are the Free Church and how important it is that this is recognized by a separatist fundamentalist group in Australia. And the world could not care less. Media coverage of the various assemblies will be, baring a Prescott style punch up, greatly reduced. Nonetheless there is much of interest and concern for those who are genuinely concerned for the good of the Lord’s cause in Scotland. Let me point out some of the major concerns and issues.

The Church of Scotland – This potentially promises to be one of the most radical assemblies in years. The Church is in accelerating decline – last year the membership went down by 23,000. In my own city of Dundee over the past decade the Church of Scotland has lost the equivalent of two congregations per year. The situation is very serious and will continue to be so. The response to this is a report coming before this assembly entitled ‘Church without walls’. Without going into detail this report wants to initiate changes which result in an acceptance of the closure of some 500 churches and a move towards a more congregational system. Despite the fact that it claims to be radical and contains a number of interesting ideas, I find it difficult to believe it will work. Why? Because it is not radical enough. At least one in five of the church’s ministers share the views of the Queen’s Lord High Commissioner, the Tory peer Lord Younger, that Jesus was not God and that the virgin birth did not happen. The vast majority of the Church’s evangelicals (approx one third of the ministry) seem prepared to tolerate this viewpoint and remain in a church where this can be openly taught. Until the Church of Scotland deals with this and returns to proclaiming the gospel then it will not have any substantial impact and it will continue to decline. Scotland does not need the reiteration of the old style liberal modernist mantras – it needs the gospel which includes as a pretty basic component that Jesus is God. When Lord Younger visits the Free Church Assembly I hope the Free Church Moderator gives him a lesson in theology. Pray for the Church of Scotland and our brethren in it.

The Free Church Continuing – Reading the reports for this assembly was one of the most discouraging experiences I have had in years. The FCC of course preaches the gospel – there is no chance of a denial of Jesus being God or of any of the fundamental doctrines of the bible. Which is what makes their reports so depressing. How can a church which preaches the gospel produce reports which have so little to do with it and which are so irrelevant to where we are today? The danger is that people will look at this and say – if this is the gospel I want nothing to do with it. The reports to the FCC Assembly produce a picture of a church in decline, dominated by and existing for a few clergy, with little interest in mission (except for a commendable desire to plant a church in the Borders) and a great deal of interest in legal matters, the reformed version of ‘political correctness’ and the desire to appear important, big and faithful. How far the FCC have removed themselves from the historic Free Church is demonstrated by their advocating that the civil courts have the right to interfere in church discipline. How far they have removed from reality is demonstrated by the fact that they intend to reinstate theonomy as permissible within the Church – just the message Scotland needs to hear! Strangely I found the FCC reports to have the same basic problem as the Church of Scotland reports – not radical enough, concerned primarily with the outward form, the shell, rather than the heart of the matter. Pray for the FCC and especially those within it who have a more sensible and spiritual approach.

The Free Church – Having critiqued the two other Assemblies (I hope the FP’s and the APC will forgive me for not commenting on their respective meetings) I suppose I will now be expected, as a Free Church minister, to state how wonderful things are in the Free Church. Well, I cannot. We still have a church which is basically in maintenance and survival mode rather than mission mode. We are still a very small denomination who rightly will receive little coverage because of our insignificance and size. We too have a shortage of good ministers, men who will preach the word, pastor the flock and evangelise the lost. We too have a tendency not to face up to some of the major issues whilst allowing ourselves to be sidetracked by relatively peripheral issues. We have nothing to be complacent about. We too need to repent, change and grow.

Having said that there is evidence within the reports and within the Church that at least things are going in the right direction. I am more hopeful for the Free Church than I have ever been. Some of the hopeful signs include the following:

- The financial situation is healthier than it has been for many years. Once the burden of providing a fully funded pension scheme is removed there is a real possibility that we will be able to invest far more in the evangelisation of Scotland.

- Dunblane is to be removed from Church extension status to being placed on the Equal Dividend platform. Continual development in Falkirk and South Uist indicate that they will not be too far away from that status. All this means that even with the constraints of the present Church extension budget there is going to be room for further new church planting work. Watch this space!

- All 150 versions of the supplementary psalms have now been prepared. It is anticipated that a full publication will be available in 2002.

- Interest in foreign missions continues with support being considered for new fields. The Free Church spends about 14% of its income on overseas mission.

- After a couple of barren years the number of students to the College is beginning to increase again.

These are hopeful signs. We will probably have a quiet and united Assembly. All we can do is build the altar –we wait for God to send the fire. A couple of years ago in this column I wrote the words below which then seemed to me like a distant dream. Now I can see the possibility of them being fulfilled.

“What a joy it would be if the newspapers and others were to report that at this Assembly the Free Church was once again seeking to establish a national evangelical Presbyterian Church. It may seem an impossible dream, a great ideal but then so was the original Free Church, and so was the original New Testament Church. How wonderful to have a Church in which Highland and Lowland, Chalmers and McCheyne as well as Kennedy and Begg would be welcomed and encouraged! How wonderful to have debates at our Assembly which focused on evangelising Scotland, working with other believers and seeking to be salt and light in our society. Which will be true – the media portrayal of an irrelevant Church confined to a few peripheral areas of Scotland, concerned only for its own eccentricities and internal problems? Or an outward, upward looking Church able to say amen to the great statement of Chalmers “Who cares for the Free Church compared with the Christian good of Scotland?”

Pray for the Free Church of Scotland.

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