Our Approach

In 2014 a group of Christian leaders came together into a working group with one of the Maclellan Foundations to commission the Barna Group to do the first national research into the condition of the church in Scotland since the early 1970's.  The purpose was to help guide the convenings but also to make publicly available data that would serve the church in Scotland.  "Transforming Scotland: The state of Christianity, Faith and the Church in Scotland"  showed a generally bleak picture in terms of bible engagement and church attendance. However, one highlight of the findings proved to be quite compelling: that the evangelical millennials knew that only a radical Christian faith would serve growing up in  fiercely secular 21st century.

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At the Transforming Scotland event with Tim Keller on 25th October 2018, he introduced the idea of "Gospel Ecosystem" as a way of looking at transforming culture in Scotland. He suggested the following key aspects to achieve change, imagined as 4 concentric circles:

1. Contextualised Gospel message.

2. Unity of Christian Leaders across the denominations.

3. Aggressive Church planting.

4. Specialist ministries, consisting of:

• A kingdom-centred prayer movement that is not related any particular church or network.

• Campus and Youth

• Justice & mercy initiatives, e.g. Christian involvement in local government, development of specialist charities.

• Faith & work initiatives in the marketplace, particularly Gospel-centred fellowships for people with similar vocations.

• Educational and family-support organisations.

• Church Leadership development systems.

• Church revitalisation.

 

From this the following workstreams were identified for the future Transforming Scotland convenings and separate Working Groups were set up to look at each. 

1. Leaders in all areas of society and marketplace leadership.

2. Church Planting.

3. Prayer.

4. Change in the gospel ecosystem and gospel contextualisation.

5. Models of Funding and Sustainability.

These groups will now form the basis for developing the criteria for how our funding will be spent in Scotland over the coming years.  Until then it was agreed that no new funding awards should be made but ideas would be actively sought.

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