News and Events

The Society goes to the Festival

The iconic Scottish Psalter is 375 years old this year. The Body known as the Edinburgh Festival of the Sacred Arts, which offers a week of events during the Fringe each year, has two events. One is an evening of psalm settings of words from the Psalter, some newly commissioned, and takes place in the Church of the Sacred Heart on Wednesday August 13 at 7.30pm.

They have asked the Society to provide a second event at St Vincent's Chapel on Friday August 15 at 3pm which tells the story of the Psalter, and is entitled The Split-Leaf Psalter:

a multi-media presentation about the many poets, composers, kings, committees, precentors and printers who contributed to this remarkable book

Tickets at the door of both events.

The Record

The annual journal of the Society for 2024 is now available. Addresses given at the 2024 annual meeting, and at the study day on pilgrimage in October 2024, together with other articles on pilgrimage, are included. Worship in St Magnus Cathedral, Kirkwall, is featured. There are two explorations into the arts: one exploring how faith is enlivened by the arts, the second reviews references to worship in Scottish literature. An online version is in preparation.

Study Day and Annual Meeting 2024

Study Day 2023, which will be in the autumn, takes as its theme the growing phenomenon of Pilgrimage, dropped by the Reformed churches, but experiencing a home-coming in the secularized world of the twenty-first century. Further details will be posted here as they emerge.

Annual Meeting and Supper 2024
Greyfriars Kirk May 21 5.30p Greyfriars Kirk
​John L Bell will give his Presidential Address on ‘The Life in Liturgy’. He explores how worship shapes not only belief but discipleship, how far symbol and symbolic actions can aid or impede devotion, and what is the effect of hymn texts whose dominant images celebrate the birth and death of Jesus rather than his ministry. For the Supper, book by Monday May 13 at dgalbraith@churchofscotland.org.uk (£27.50 pay on the day).

Annual Meeting 2023

The Society's Annual Meeting for 2023 is on Tuesday May 23 during the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, beginning at 5.30pm.

The speaker is the Revd Dr Liam Jerrold Fraser, minister of St Michael's Linlithgow and Convener of the Assembly's Theological Forum. His topic is

THE END OF WORSHIP? THE PURPOSE OF CONGREGATIONS AND THE SUNDAY SERVICE IN AN AGE OF MISSION PLANNING.

Stay for supper afterwards, cost £25.

Book with the Secretary Scott McKenna smckenna@churchofscotland.org.uk.

Streaming the Sunday Service

The Church Service Society is sponsoring a Study Day on Friday 24 February at Holy Trinity Church, Stirling.

The purpose of the day is to reflect both theologically and in terms of practice on the lockdown experience of the streaming of Sunday worship and where there are plans to continue.

Speakers will be the Revd Dr Tom Shields (writing in the current Theology in Scotland) and the Revd Fraser Penny, minister of Dunkeld Cathedral, whose Sunday broadcasts have attracted special mention.

The event will run from around 10.15am until 4.00pm.

Further information here

Prayers in a Pandemic

Prayers in a PandemicTwo prayers originating from both Anglican and Methodist sources for this challenging time, as well as two prayers by Lezley Stewart who is the Church of Scotland’s Recruitment and Support Secretary, within the new Faith Nurture Forum.

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