The Church of Scotland will have to close hundreds of churches in the coming years, the Kirk’s trustees have warned, as it stages its annual General Assembly.
The gathering of Kirk leaders – including new moderator Rt Rev Sally Foster-Fulton – begins on Saturday in Edinburgh against a continuing backdrop of falling membership and dwindling income.
A report going before the Assembly this week states that about 60,000 people worship in person on a Sunday, compared to 88,000 pre-pandemic, with a growing number of people choosing to worship online or in “other ways”. According to 2021 numbers, the church has 283,600 members – down from a peak of 1.3 million in the late 1950s.
Each church averages just one wedding and one baptism per year – about 1,200 in total. These are shocking, yet ultimately not surprising numbers. With an average of only 60 parishioners attending in person each week and with the cost-of-living crisis in full swing, we could probably estimate that each church pulls in around £500 a week. Not much at all.
This could be rectified. For far too long now we have seen football clubs take over from churches as places of worship. People go in their tens of thousands each week to cheer on millionaires kicking a ball around, venerating these mercenaries as they play for a club with the correct theology! These good folk have misplaced their loyalty, paying hand over fist so player X can get a new Bentley and the punter gets his fix of religion, tribalism and, in a very loose way, community. In the meantime, their local church’s future hangs in the balance.
Then there are the clubs themselves. They, like all businesses under a Homeland government, would have to work for the benefit of the local community. What a difference the club and its supporters could make if they all gave an extra pound for the church!
Now, let’s not let the church off the hook here; like the football clubs and supporters, it too loves to cheer on immigration. The church has always been one of the first bodies to condemn any sort of anti-immigration rhetoric, with most having a “refugees welcome” policy.
Where has that got the church? Dwindling numbers, a still ageing congregation and the only chance of the immigrant or footie fan setting foot through your doors will be when you close and it gets converted into a mosque or a Wetherspoon’s.
