They say that although it will not be easy to change course, a new direction can be set for a more positive future.
“Stirred by the Storm” - which is being launched on Tuesday July 16 - has been written by the Rev Ian Gilmour, who has spent 30 years as a minister in Drylaw, Leith and the city centre, and the Rev Bill Clinkenbeard, former minister of Carrick Knowe Parish Church, who died before the book was published.
Church of Scotland congregations in Edinburgh and across the country and currently going through a major upheaval with churches merging, sharing ministers and closing buildings, as the Kirk tries to cope with falling numbers, shrinking finances and a shortage of ministers.
But the book urges local church leaders to look beyond the current predicament of the Church of Scotland and take inspiration from churches in other countries. And they use examples of Christians who have made a difference in the wider world, like Northern Ireland politicians John Hume who won the Nobel Peace Prize for standing up in the midst of ‘the Troubles’ and helping to build peace across the divide.
Mr Gilmour said: “We point to people, who in their Christian lives and work have led society. We need a transfer of thinking to say perhaps the Christian church should be supporting members who are breaking new ground rather than always looking to the building, the minister and the parish; to begin to say we should be active in changing the world.
“This was the story for the early Christians, who didn’t have their own buildings but they lived with great integrity and they were respected in society as leaders.” He said he had seen this himself in Sri Lanka,where Christians were a very small community but “by and large in business and politics, Christians were respected as being trustworthy leaders”.
He said at the Reformation, the Church of Scotland had taken education and the parish system as a way of changing the whole of society. “Today we have become too introverted - we have always looked at ourselves rather than saying ‘Let's speak to politicians, educationalists, health care professionals’.
“You don’t start with 'we are the church and this is our building and this is our area' and in a sense you protect that. You look at the whole situation afresh both nationally and locally and say who are your partners and what are the needs.”
* “Stirred by the Storm” is available from the Cornerstone bookshop underneath St John’s Church at the west end of Princes Street. Profits from the book will go to support the international charity Water Aid.
The launch of the book takes place at the New Town Church - formerly St Andrew’s and St George’s West - in George Street on Tuesday, July 16, at 7.30pm and is open to all.