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History of Stockethill
An Established Community
The Stockethill area of Aberdeen, which is located a mile or so from the city centre and beside the main hospital complex in the city, was built primarily as a post-war community. A good number of the 4000 residents in the parish first moved into the prefabs that were put up in the late 1940s, and some even remember the establishment of the new Church Extension Charge and the laying of the foundation stone of the church building in 1949.
60 years on, our community is a diverse one, with a good mixture of private and council housing: houses, flats and high rises. A quarter of the population is over 65 years of age and a third is under 35. Economic indicators show ours to be one of the poorer areas of Aberdeen, with many of the associated issues, but Stockethill remains a place where most people seem to enjoy living and there is a positive feel to the community.
Over the years the church has played a significant part in the life of the community and enjoyed, at times, a high profile. Like so many congregations in the last 50 years, however, its fortunes have gone up and down until, in the late 1990s, it had come to the place of almost inevitable closure. Exactly what was to be done with the parish by the Presbytery was unclear, but the opportunity arose for the newly-formed New Charge Development Committee to become involved and seek to replant a congregation into the existing community.
The final service in the church was held in June 1999 and the congregation dissolved. In truth there remains a sense of loss for some of those who had remained faithful to the congregation at that time, and it has been recognised by many of those involved that a more sensitive and pastorally helpful closure could have taken place.
At the end of October that same year Ian Aitken was ordained and inducted as the first minister of the new charge, officially titled New Stockethill, but known as both The Church of Scotland in Stockethill and Stockethill’s Community Church.
The Importance of Team
Although only Ian was officially appointed to the leadership of the charge by the Committee, from the very beginning (and indeed even in the time before we came) we have recognised that there is a team ministry in place here. The team is made up of Ian along with Sarah Aitken (his wife) and Gail Field (who works as an agency nurse to support her ministry).
The importance of beginning with a team cannot in our view be underestimated. There is a very practical issue to do with sharing the load and sharing the burden. We have also come to realise that particularly in the early days before the birth of the Aitken’s first child in June 2000, their marriage could have turned into a constant ‘church strategy meeting’ without the involvement of a third person. Since the addition of two more children, the benefit of being part of a team in ministry has remained apparent. We are concerned about the pressure put on ministry couples (particularly those who understand ministry to be a family call) if they are sent alone into a new charge situation.
On a more general level we also recognise the importance of the mix of gifts that a team brings. In our case we found that God had brought together three people who had pastoral and intercession gifts, prophetic and worship gifts, and teaching and leadership gifts respectively. Whilst the maturity of those gifts in each of us was at different levels, that particular mix has proved to be of great importance and more so as we have helped nurture each others’ gifting.
The importance of waiting
For the first year we did very little other than wait. Of course during that waiting time a lot was happening.
We waited as we got to know our community and got to know God’s vision. Ian especially was able to become involved in community activities, for example in the local community centre and as chaplain to the school. We didn’t begin any public worship or make ourselves particularly visible as a church for a number of months. During that time the Lord was teaching us about our community and forming within us the beginnings of a vision for the church in this community.
We now understand the importance of a church growing up from within its own community. In the early days we sought to expand the team by inviting other committed and gifted Christians to come and join us, and although a handful came at different times for different periods of time none stayed for more than 10 months. A phrase that has come to symbolise some of what we have learnt is that, like new shoots pushing their way through cracks in a pavement, the church needs to grow up through the cracks in our community.
Whilst listening to the Lord was important to us from the beginning, we have a growing understanding of the importance of the prophetic and the ministry of the Prophet. Without the prophetic word of the Lord there is a great danger of running in all directions to our own destruction (Proverbs 29:18). In a new charge situation there are a great many opportunities and possibilities. Waiting to discover which ones the Lord wants you to take, in our opinion, is crucial.
THE DEVELOPING CHURCH
Growing Vision
Members of the previous congregation were still living in the area, although many had associated themselves with other neighbouring congregations. Those who had shouldered most of the burden as office bearers in the last few years were happy to pass the baton on, but proved invaluable as a source of support, encouragement and practical information. There was also an issue with the building which needed a good deal of upgrading if it was going to serve the purposes of a new congregation. A monthly service was begun in the lounge of one of the high rise flats, primarily as a stop gap measure for members of the previous congregation. However, this congregation has not only grown and served a particular section of our community, but has helped lead us into having a vision for, and being, a diverse church.
During the 5 years since the charge was established the vision of the church has developed. We have articulated a set of values and a purpose statement that help us in our understanding of who we are and what we are doing. Our purpose statement is simply changed lives to the glory of God, and we describe our values in this way:
The Church of Scotland in Stockethill aims to be a community where:
1) we give God his proper place;
2) we love and serve each other and help each other mature in Christ
3) we love and serve the world in the name of Jesus.
None of these statements is particularly innovative and they are certainly not unique, as churches through-out the world have similar, if differently worded statements and understanding of what they are about. But we have also recognised the importance of ‘re-inventing the wheel’. Whilst we have constantly sought to learn from others and to root ourselves in our tradition and heritage as part of the Church of Scotland and Church in Scotland, we, nonetheless, have discovered an importance in revisiting basic questions as to what the church actually is. Re-inventing the wheel helps in understanding exactly what a wheel is, what it is for, how it works, and perhaps most importantly, what sort of wheel is needed.
A number of important themes have emerged in that process. Styling ourselves as Stockethill’s Community Church is meant to articulate both our focus (the community of Stockethill) and something of what is important to us: community. We have sought to encourage the growth of Christian community in various different shapes and styles whenever and wherever we can. At present this is seen in our having two distinct congregations (the previously-mentioned more traditional congregation and a more contemporary and alternative weekly meeting), as well as a number of Community Groups: small groups that are made up of people who attend one of these congregations, some who attend only a Community Group and some who attend the worship services of other churches.
An image which we have sometimes used to describe the form of our church is that of an umbrella. The umbrella itself is the administration, leadership, structure and resourcing that any church needs; the handle represents the values and purpose which we agree to share, but beneath the umbrella and holding onto the handle are any number of congregations, groups, communities etc. which develop and grow.
As well as being a church with community at its heart, it is our desire to be a church at the heart of our community. One of the key decisions in regard to this conviction was the calling we felt to be a church without a building. Whilst in many cases we recognise that a church building can be a useful and effective tool for mission, in our situation the community is already well served with community buildings. Having our own church building is not only an additional burden on the new congregation, but has an inherent danger of isolating us from the community. Without a building we are forced to use centres, pubs, homes and other community facilities in such a way that it puts us in touch with the people we live amongst. More importantly it raises the question of what it is we are calling other people to and what it is that we are calling them to become.
Growing People
What we are calling people to is a Spirit-filled community gathered around Christ and in his name. What we are calling people to become is Spirit-filled Christ followers. We became aware of a pattern in the ministry of Jesus which we describe as Gathering-Calling-Discipling-Sending. Crowds of people gathered around Jesus for any number of reasons and he ministered to them all. From that crowd he called people to commitment to himself and to live in the Kingdom. He then discipled them to a depth of Kingdom living that only becomes possible through being with him. The purpose of this discipleship was to send them to serve others so that the ‘crowd’ could be ministered to and the Kingdom revealed.
Although we recognise that this pattern is not necessarily chronological (for example one may be discipled through service and may become part of the crowd as a servant) it is a pattern that has informed our own ministry. Recognising, perhaps slowly, that any attempt to parachute in crack troops was not the way to plant an indigenous church, the church has grown slowly both in numbers and in depth of faith. Although we were running the small monthly service for a number of months, our first real public event was at Christmas 2000. This was followed by an Alpha Course in early 2001 and the establishment of our Sunday @ the Centre weekly service. The group in the church who currently form the core of members involved in ministry have among them a number who were on that first Alpha Course and whose faith came alive at that time.
We do not have a formal discipleship programme but see the formation of strong community, of those who want to grow in faith gathered around Christ, as being the basis for Spirit-led discipleship. This takes place within the services, with the Sunday @ the Centre service specifically designed to create community, and the Community Groups. Over time we have seen people’s gifts and callings emerge and have seen them take up positions of leadership and ministry.
As we have grown, the more informal approach has become harder to maintain. We have increased in numbers (currently the number of people associated with the church stands at 113) and many of those who have come to join us have been either new converts and those whose faith is being renewed, or people who have found church a place that has excluded or hurt them in the past. Each of these groups of people bring particularly intensive pastoral needs. Unlike many New Charges we have a sizeable number of elderly members, a section of the church which we have sought to encourage and grow particularly through the traditional congregation, but which again is pastorally intensive. This growth is causing us constantly to reassess our church life, one of the most important consequences of which has been the narrowing of the leadership team’s focus onto their own individual gifts and calling. Whilst in the early days there is a need to be jacks of all trades, as the church grows it needs the leadership to concentrate more on their own areas of giftedness both to strengthen the foundations of the church and to broaden the numbers of people involved in ministry.
THE CHURCH WORKING WELL
A Missionary Community
It is clear that whilst we have always sought to be part of and serve the community to which God has called us, we have, in the initial stages of development, focussed on exactly that, developing the new charge. This is not because we are unaware that the church is by nature missionary, but because we are convinced that it is when the church works well that it is the hope of the world because it fulfils its purpose of seeing lives being changed. Our desire is to establish a church which works well, which begs the question of what we mean by a church that works well.
A church that works well will be by nature missionary and two particular aspects of our story have helped keep our missionary edge. One has been being a church without a building and the other has been the fact that we have not attracted significant numbers of committed Christians looking to help start a new church. Ours is a church that is growing, in many ways from the bottom up. Ironically church growth itself has often threatened to stifle the missionary focus of the church, and so there has been a need for vigilance in this area and a constant restating of the value that we aim to be a community that loves and serves the world in the name of Jesus.
As we have reflected on our history, a number of themes have emerged which give us clues to what God has been doing amongst us and what it might mean for the church to work well.
A Community of Grace
We understand a community of grace to be a group of people who have experienced the grace of God in their lives; whose lives have been changed by that grace and whose lives are then shaped by that grace. Grace becomes the hallmark of our relationships with each other and the grace of God is what we seek to extend to others.
While not every story is one of which we are proud, and there have been people we have failed, there are many people within our community who have found the grace of God amongst us through our seeking to be an open community which accepts all who come to us no matter why they come. The creation of that sort of community, in many different forms, will continue to be at the heart of who we are as a church.
A Prophetic Community
We understand a prophetic community to be a group of people who seek to be led by the Holy Spirit. The theme of waiting on God has continued from the earliest days of the church and it is our conviction that an ever deepening ability to hear the voice of God and ever stronger ability to trust in Him as individuals and as a community will enable us to be effective in the Spirit.
The initial calling of a team which had a teacher-prophet-intercessor gift mix, and an increasing emphasis on the prophetic and intercession alongside teaching, has led us to the conviction that as we go deeper into God we will go wider into the world around us and the work of the Kingdom there.
A Simple Church
As we look forward we are aware that the “one size fits all” church is likely only to fit a very narrow section of society. Our understanding of church begins with our understanding of God, and therefore there is a need for clarity in our understanding and knowledge of who God is. God often leads us in surprising ways, however, and there is also a need for flexibility in our understanding of how church is formed and expressed. That flexibility means developing the sort of structures that can nurture new life and new communities wherever they emerge and can help people deepen their relationship with God in Word and Spirit. We are also aware that in situations that are resource poor, poverty itself may be an advantage rather than a problem.
This is leading us to begin to consider the idea of a “Simple Church”.
Simple Church is done with the minimum of resources releasing the maximum potential.
A simple church will put more and more emphasis on the ministry of the whole people and less and less emphasis on the ministry of paid staff.
A simple church may have a large diversity of gathering times and styles but will have a sense of unity in purpose and values.
A simple church will use the buildings and spaces it finds itself amongst rather than create its own purpose built facilities.
A simple church may be high tech but will not be high maintenance.
A simple church will be low on ministry projects and schemes but will be high on changing lives through the ministry of its people.
A simple church will rely more on the power of the Spirit than on the abilities we possess.
A simple church will need strong organisation and leadership but will be able to have fluid structures.
A simple church will have many entry points but a shared goal.
A simple church will not see the preservation of itself as a goal but will be constantly reproducing and redeveloping itself.
A simple church will have a strong sense of being part of one community but will be open to all.
The Church of Scotland in Stockethill is a new charge which is still in the early stages of development. The journey so far has been exciting, surprising and challenging. As we go deeper with God in the next few months, we believe that he will let the Kingdom go wider into the community and we wait with excited anticipation to discover what that will mean.
(Written by the Steering Group of the Church of Scotland in Stockethill)
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