Action of Churches Together in Scotland (ACTS)

Image by Florian Seiffert (F*) via Flickr

This is another extract from the Methodist Church's Ecumenical Relations report for Scotland, 2010.  This post focuses upon the role of Action of Churches Together in Scotland (ACTS). 

Through most of the year the ACTS Members Meeting managed to focus on the shared mission of the churches in Scotland, leaving the Trustees to manage the ecumenical instrument.  However, with the re-emergence of Scottish Churches House financial crisis later in the year the focus of both the Trustees and members meeting returned to resolving the SCH issues.

Significant mission initiatives supported through the year included:

• Edinburgh 2010 (with the secondment of the ACTS General Secretary)
• Various events around a visit from the World Council of Churches Executive Committee
• Back to Church Sunday promotion
• A conference on "Working with Children in the Church Community"£
• A conference on "The Spiritual Journey in old Age"
• A conference to discuss "Spiritual Care in higher Education"
• Training for Congregational Disability Champions
• The launch of the Minority Ethnic Christians Together in Scotland (MECTIS) an association of around 50 ethnic minority Christian groups
• Ecumenical Mediation and the outcomes of a Church of Scotland led Conference on "Christianity, Conflict and the Soul of the nation"
• Arrangements for the visit of Pope Benedict XVI to Scotland
• Early preparation for the Churches response to the Scottish parliamentary elections in 2011
• The development of networks across the churches to support "Pilgrim Paths"
• The "Quiet Time for Scotland" initiative - a time for prayer around St Andrews Day
• A review of ecumenism in Scotland using the Australian Churches Covenanting Together process and facilitated with "Quaker" style clerking.

In a very busy year, due to Edinburgh 2010 and the ongoing crisis with Scottish Churches House, the ACTS staff have done stalwart work in supporting all these new initiatives alongside servicing the 4 Networks and a wide range of Associated Ecumenical Groups.

We'll take a look at the 4 Networks in a future post.