News from the Clergy Conference

Strange thing to be confined in a monastery with a group of clergy. We’ve had 41 here – which is a wonderful turn-out for us. Our guest has been Rev Peter Neilson of the ‘Church without Walls’ Project of the Church of Scotland. We’ve been looking at the question of how the church adapts to changed circumstances and how it engages with the very secular society which Scotland now is. But apart from that … the most important thing for us has been to begin to understand that the Kirk is now a church among churches – no longer expecting to have exclusive territorial rights. We therefore are free to move from being a vulnerable minority community to be also a church among churches. That is a big mindset shift for us – but it is good news for our clergy who sometimes feel that they have to ask permission to move outside the circle of ‘our people’.