Assembly Trustees Update – November 2025

November's Assembly Trustee meeting took place on Thursday 13th. This was a shorter meeting due to the Trustees' meeting later that day with representatives of the Working Group set up at GA2025 to look at how all the different groups within the Church relate. Having consulted with the wider Church, that Working Group is now taking the findings of that process and consulting with stakeholders in 121, after which both sets of responses will be analysed and fed into the Trustees' report to GA2026.

Being a Trustee requires looking back as well as looking forward for there are moments when to know where you are going requires understanding of where you have been. Over time the missional context within which we serve changes, which means decisions taken at one point may require revisiting in the future. This principle is actually ingrained within the Reformed theological tradition through Ecclesia Reformata, semper reformanda, or "the Reformed Church, always requiring to be reformed."

As the Trustees have grappled with what future funding of national ministries will look like it has become clear that it will be different to the current Giving to Grow system. Since GA2024 the Trustees in their reports have repeatedly highlighted the need for a new approach because the underlying mission context the Church finds itself in today has changed. Successive General Assemblies have accepted this is the case.

It is important then to look back and ask, what has worked but is no longer working as well as what is working now but may not work in the future, and to plan accordingly, always recognising that this takes place within the context of the Church of Scotland being a national church with national and international obligations. The Trustees spent a significant part of the meeting wrestling with this.

We would not expect to ever reach a place where the Church is not faced with this challenge as the mission context is always changing thus the Church must always change in response. We will always be requiring to be reformed if we wish to communicate a relevant gospel message to an ever-changing world. Discussions continue.

In addition, the meeting had ongoing updates of management accounts as well as updates from the Faith Action Programme Leadership Team (FAPLT) and CrossReach.

The Day of Prayer on 29 November, the eve of St Andrew's Day, was planned as a way to console Church members after the difficulties of recent years, and through praying together to inspire renewal throughout the Church. You can find a wide range of materials on this page.

Norman Smith