Event/Meeting Details

The second Scottish Episcopal Church Rural Commission Conference will take place on Saturday 20th February at St Johns, Inverness.

The programme for the event has been driven by the key issues which emerged from the Action of Churches Together in Scotland/Scottish Episcopal Church (SEC) Rural Futures Conference held in December 2009 which were:

• Over the next 10-20 years the population of Rural Scotland will increase mainly at the expense of Urban Scotland. Future growth in numbers in the church is most likely to be in our rural charges.
• Climate change will affect land use, especially in relation to aforestation and flood protection. There is a key role for the church to help put such actions into the context of the care of creation.
• An increasing scarcity of energy and the need to reduce carbon generation will affect both the ways in which we manage churches e.g. heating, timing of services and the potential for travel to church. Different types of church activity e.g. more house church like formats, will be important. We make need to make provision for local people from out with the SEC. We will need to dialogue with other denominations to help them in providing for the needs of SEC members.
• Ministry training in our churches needs to include training for work in rural communities which must include an understanding of activities such as Crofting and of how it would be most appropriate for the church to engage. Electronic communication will grow in importance for the churches. It is critical that we should keep under review its potential for being at the heart of being church in rural situation.
• The key issues identified above form the basis of an examination of their implications for future activity within our churches.  The areas highlighted thus include demography, supporting individuals during change, liturgy and training. The demands of Climate Change Targets will require churches to co-operate in a more extensive way than in the past perhaps through new cluster based formats while our Church buildings are likely to function in a more varied way and to host activities beyond worship.

This conference will provide the Church with a scoping exercise exploring areas which Dioceses may subsequently wish to explore in their own contexts.

Provisional Programme

10.00: Arrivals and coffee

10.40: Introduction to the day and key points from the “Rural Futures” Event

10.50: Liturgy. Ian Paton, Old St Paul’s, Edinburgh. The appropriate liturgies for the future will be influenced by doctrine and by practicalities Liturgies may need to reflect a potentially changed make up of congregation e.g. more people from other traditions and a lower availability of Ministers.

11.50: Church Structures. Lisa Eunson, St Ternan’s, Banchory The optimum structures for rural church will be influenced by our vision for the mission of the rural church. The term structures include issues related to buildings and people.

12.50: Lunch

13.30: Information Technology. Cliff Piper St John’s, Forres and Jane Ross, St Clements, Aberdeen Developments such as Broadband will influence the range of ways that church members will be able to be in contact with each other and with the church. In an era of more restricted travel this will be important to both contact and to travel. In this respect we will move closer to elements of secular society where half of the population have their closest friend on “Face book”. Broadband will be increasingly important in providing worship to those in rural areas. Speakers will give a personal take on where they feel the church is going with this mode of communication.

14.00: Training for rural ministry Michael Fuller, Theological Institute of the Scottish Episcopal Church. hose working rural churches in the future will need to have had specific and focussed training for the role. Some aspects of training will need to be very focused on the rural situation.

14.45: Ecumenical issues Ecumenical Issues.  Speakers from churches active in rural Scotland including Andy Campbell (Church of Scotland) and John Woodside (Roman Catholic).

15.40: Final open discussion

16.00: End

Attendance at the conference is free but so that numbers can be provided for catering those wishing to attend need to register for the event. Registrations should be sent to: Mrs N Higgott at Fairview, 48, Saltburn, Invergordon, IV180JY or to office@moray.anglican.org - by 17 February 2010