Scottish Parish Takes Gospel into Heart of Community

|PIC1|A church in the west of Scotland is overturning 400 years of Church of Scotland tradition with an innovative new venture to bring the gospel into the heart of the community.

With no walls, no building and no elders, New Charge Church in Greenock is really living out the ethos of the Church Without Walls report, accepted by the Church of Scotland General Assembly in 2001 with the aim of transforming the Church into a fluid movement capable of going to where the people are.

Rev. David McCarthy, leader of Greenock Eastend Parish New Charge, takes his inspiration from the scene in the Bible where Jesus asks his disciples to go out into the world and make them disciples, reports the Greenock Telegraph.

"We are going out into the community,” said Rev. McCarthy. “We hold our services in buildings around the east end. We want to be part of the community."

The church has spent the last two years since it was set up developing plans and ideas for evangelism and outreach within the local community.

|QUOTE|"We have spent a lot of time listening to people,” he said. “That is what we want to do. We want the church to be relevant and supportive.

“We are reaching out,” he added. “Now it is time for action."

The church is already in the midst of organising a new mission trip to Romania to help communities rebuild their lives and also has plans to obtain a shop front in the local community to give it instant recognition to locals.

Church members are diligently going out onto the streets of the west Scotland town in a bid to develop services for young people and are hoping the shop front will pave the way to founding a Working for Families project within Greenock.

The Church of Scotland has been pushing local churches to live out the gospel within the wider community and go to where the people are as part of its Church Without Walls philosophy.

|AD|“We are literally the church without walls,” said Rev. McCarthy, who also works with Inverclyde Youth for Christ and with the local police force.

Rev. McCarthy’s initiative has gained the full support of local centres including the Craigend Resource Centre, as well as locals who continue to fill up the Sunday services currently being held in Crawfurdsburn Centre before moving on to King’s Oak Primary School next month.

Greenock local, Jack Taylor, testified the success of the initiative: “There are no long faces at our church services on a Sunday.”

Mr Taylor’s wife, Joan, who leads the praise in the new parish, said of the church without walls: “It is so exciting and a real challenge. Everything is new. We are in for an interesting time.”

The fresh initiative is a welcome breath of fresh air in the east end community, which has experienced depopulation and numerous demolitions over recent years.