“Give us Scotland” Project
In a time where the Church in Scotland is declining at a rate never seen before, the “Give us Scotland” Project is committed to planting a vibrant, worshipping, witnessing Christian community in every location and network in Scotland. Through our own work and by collaborating with a network of Church Planting partners we have begun to implement a 20-year project to reseed Scotland with Gospel Churches.
The project name carries echoes of John Knox’s cry “Give me Scotland or I die”. It is this heartfelt passion to bring the Gospel to this nation that is the driver for this audacious, faith-filled goal.
It is our conviction that Cairn Movement is well positioned to act as a catalyst in training and ongoing support of church planters. The project provides an opportunity for a consortium of Christian funders to invest in a significant Church Planting fund which will see new churches planted for an investment of up to £15k per church plant.
Why we do what we do
We believe that the Good News of Jesus continues to be the greatest message of hope and life in the world. God is continuing to offer new life through Christ to all who put their trust in him. The Gospel message continues to transform lives.
We also believe that the spiritual harvest is greater now than it has been for decades. A BBC/ComRes Survey in August 2021 points to a resurgence of spiritual engagement and enquiry among the under 35s. The issue is not the harvest.
We believe that the issue is that the Church in various guises has lost its focus on reaching out and making disciples of Jesus. We need vibrant, worshipping, witnessing Christian communities that confidently call people into a lifelong commitment to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. We believe that we need to raise up, equip and support a whole new generation of missionary leaders committed to doing this right across Scotland. This is what the “Give us Scotland” Project is all about.
Who we are
The Cairn Movement was established in 2015 as a catalyst for a new missionary movement. We are a network of church leaders, church planters and other missional leaders drawn from across Scotland who are seeking to work together in this shared cause – to see a vibrant Christian community in every location and network in Scotland. There are team profiles on our website.
After our pilot year (2023-24) the project is successfully supporting 8 church plants as they establish themselves: Forres Community Church (CofS) - Stuart & Sian Finlayson; Connect Church, Port Glasgow (Independent) - Marianne & Graham McCallum; Wallacewell and Toryglen, Glasgow (CofS) - Kaye Gardiner; Durness & Kinlochbervie (CofS) - Andrea Boyes; InTogether (Autism impacted families - Perth) (CofS) - Lynsey Paterson & Anne Stott; St. Andrew’s area Micro-church network (Baptist) - Paul Grinyer; Recovery Church, Shetland (Methodist) - Michelle McAdoo; Meadowbank Community Church (Independent) - Caleb & Summer Shocklie.
To get a small flavour of the kind of thing we are helping establish here is a short video update from Stuart Finlayson from Forres - https://youtu.be/n7HWhwXhShc
We have been delighted by the significant range of places, denominations and strategies being employed by this first group. Each is at a slightly different stage of development but all of them have been grateful for the funding and support provided.
How will we do this
Training
Over a number of years, through our partnership with Forge Scotland (now an integrated part of the Cairn Movement) we have been involved in training over 260 people across Scotland who have gone on to establish 155 new church plants, mission projects or other missional activities. (Some pioneering stories here) In the past we have focused on individual leaders being trained but this is changing to become small teams for each new church plant. Our goal in year 2024-25 is to recruit 10-15 church planting teams of up to 30 individuals who will come through our training programme and then be supported to plant.
Support beyond training
Breakthrough Teams – a visiting short term mission team from within the Cairn network will come to bring breakthrough in the local context. By visiting 4-6 times in the first couple of years of the work this would build momentum for the church plant leading to multiplication moving forward, as each church plant would be supported to plant again. To date, two plants have received Breakthrough teams, with four more starting soon. These teams have spent time supporting the church plants in mapping their area and some initial evangelistic outreaches.
Network support – We have established a One Stop Mission Shop approach to support these church plants with a range of support services. These have ranged from charity constitutions to funding strategies, online presence to safeguarding. All 8 GUS Church Plant leaders are being coached in small online groups and have attended our leadership retreat.
Funding - Through our Micro Grants we can offer seed funding of up to £10k per team. This could support initial core costs like equipment purchase, venue hire, online presence but could also go into the mix as match funding for other funding bodies to offer some salary costs where necessary. The local teams may also want to use this money to pay for additional support for websites, policy development and other services which aid the establishment of the new work. With over 20-years of church planting and funding experience we are well positioned to provide targeted and effective funding support. We have found that Church Planters tend to be highly entrepreneurial, and we would seek to maximise any financial investment made in their project.
We have given grants to three of the plants so far, with all of them developing proposals. We have funded websites, governance support, training, direct outreach, and a prayer hut on the North Coast 500 route!
We are looking for funding partners
In 2023-24, 9 Christian funders provided the pilot year funding of £105k to support these first 8 church plants. We are now seeking funding for years 2, 3 and 4. We are praying for and would greatly appreciate the support of the Christian funders to achieve £100k per year. We are delighted that our first commitment has been made by the Vardy Foundation giving £20k for 2 years – dependent on being match funded.
We have been working to develop our new website www.cairnmovement.com/give-us-scotland/ where we have launched our public appeal page for individuals and churches to give one-off and regular gifts to the GUS appeal. Our target for this fund is £50k in 2024-25. Our hope is that this will allow us to create a more sustainable funding stream in the years to come.
This will give us a funding target in 2024-25 of £150k. This will support the recruitment of 30 people onto the Forge Pioneer course (up from the 16 in year 2023-24). We are anticipating that with this support we will see a further 10-15 Give us Scotland churches planted in 2024-25.
We thank you for your support and are very happy to answer any questions you may have about this work. Please contact Alan McWilliam (Cairn CEO) alan@cairnmovement.com.
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