No people are turning away from the apostate teachings being pushed by the Church of Scotland. The churches preaching the Gospel are actually growing.

When the church strives to mirror the world it has nothing to offer those seeking more than the world.

Dan, a Vicarage in Scotland is called a Manse and a vicar is called Minister

If you think about the evangelists that came out of Scotland throughout history, maybe some needed to stay,but unfortunately i think liberalism is killing Scotland and it's people.

As an Anglican living in Scotland for 30,years I have attended my local C of S church per force. Our commuter country parish was vibrant with an excellent evangelical minister until lockdown when the church suddenly shut up shop even before being asked by the SNP government. Now the picture is as you describe with closures and amalgamations enforced by HQ. In disgust at the closure I went to a rebel independent church who took the ScottishGovt to court over its closure policy and we won. This church has grown from 12 to 100 plus weekly congregations. But The authorities had no legal or constitutional right to close churches for any reason at all. Yet the otherwise simple excellent local C of S minister was an SNP supporter. He had put politics before God and retired in the middle of Covid his ministry in ruins. It is very sad . But there has been no repentance on the issue of Covid closures despite everything.

Go woke, go broke Brother. The modern rot started in 1992 IMO.

The devil is in the church causing havoc.

I currently attend a Church of Scotland Church. The Minister holds traditional views and our Presbytery was one of the few who voted against Gay Marriage. Solid Gospel preaching CoS congregations still exist, I do lament that the General Assembly give us a lot of baggage though.

What the Church of Scotland won't admit is that as they decline, independent evangelical churches in Scotland are growing in number and membership. Sadly the real root of the decline can be found in the church's revisionist agenda. As an ordained Church of Scotland minister, who still fills a pulpit or two when I'm asked, I no longer work for the church and my family and I attend an independent evengelical congregation that continues to grow, and is well populated with C of S 'refugees' in search of a gospel ministry. Many of the biggest Church of Scotland congregations, and by far their best financial givers, either left the church as entire congregations, or were split to the wind and sought fellowship elsewhere after the church went woke. Now they've gone broke.....who could have predicted ehh? Galatians 1:6-10

The Kirk has been declining for decades, but there are still some strong preachers left within it. Together with a number of fellow breakaway congregations from the Kirk, we are all now the remnant, and the gospel message is resilient, and the body of Christ there is strong. Presbyterian, expository bible based preaching, reaching out into Scotland. The dead wood is gone. We are moving forward. There are new members. In my church in Glasgow, we have three buildings, 4 ministers (pastors), and the presence in the community is growing. It is Scottish, but it has lots of members from all over the world in the congregation. We reach out to all our Christian bodies of believers everywhere and to you, the remnant in England. Thank you for your excellent review and support. We stand with you. Be encouraged!

I left the C of E a while ago and now attend a Free Evangelical Church. Jesus Christ is my Lord and Saviour.

When a church brings a false Gospel, things that should never be, things like LLF and priests in same sex marriage, then just like the book of Revelation says JESUS will remove its lamp stand. Should the delegates at the C of E synod in July have this in mind.

God is in Scotland as much as ever - we need those churches to connect to Our Lord and Master again

You have hit the nail on the head Rev Dan. Church should be about Jesus and proclaiming the Gospel. That is the one job of church. Everything else is secondary. One night when I was living in Edinburgh, God told me to go to the episcopal church around the corner on Sunday. I did and receiving communion that day was just what i needed from God. I went to the same church the next week and it was just woke nonsense. I read my Bible and didn’t go back again. My friends in Edinburgh who went woke and turned into nastier versions of themselves went to a Church of Scotland. When I see comments on church times’ Facebook page, they have no connection at all with the Bible’s teaching and many actually go directly against the teachings of Jesus. As another commenter has said here, the devil is in the church and is causing a lot of trouble. Yes, the devil is in the church. He was let in a long time ago. That time 2005 I went and sat next to a newbie in church so that they would know where the songs were in the booklet etc, after church I was asked, “is that who you are sleeping with?” I am currently worshipping Jesus in my city’s catholic cathedral since the c of e cathedral is pants. No backbone, anti white racism, completely capitulated to every edict during Covid…. The catholic cathedral did not. So I don’t do the Mary bits and they can’t stand pope Francis. When you walk in, there are posters about Jesus complete with Bible references. It is all about Jesus and worshipping Him. The cathedral is full every Sunday. 300+ people. Go to Durham cathedral, Nasty Paul’s cathedral, and you will see the cafe and shop full of people and 50 people worshipping in the cathedral. The other week, there were 500 of us singing and dancing the Corpus Christi around the city centre. The thing is the churches in general have zero connection with people. Most people in every town and city have no connection at all with any church. So for all the outreach programmes etc, they achieve close to zero. We need to rethink everything we do. It is clearly not working. But the denominations who preach the full Gospel are growing. When it comes to lgbt issues, I try to put out accurate research as well as point people to Jesus. When I get the chance, I will write a series on pornography. It’s going to be a lot of work but we need it. I will be looking at the corruption of beauty. God wants us to enjoy the world, but we have believed lies about how to enjoy beauty and how to appreciate the things God has made. The devil got in and corrupted our ways of seeing beauty. As well as the many reasons why people watch porn, and how to swap this coping mechanism for something better ie Jesus. catherinehume.wordpress.com/2024/02/21/the-intersections-of-lgbt-obesity-and-christianity/

Amen! Thank you for always keeping JESUS at the centre! There are so many amazing organisations and opportunities in this country; and the church could be so glorious and hold everything together and inspire so much good, if the church hierarchy would only read the bible and follow its instructions and leave the world to the world.

I'm going to view a little church in south Scotland on Thursday. It's on for 40k. This is a fire sale. Totally insane.

Parts of far north highlands have for many years been without any sort of Churches . It is not always possible for folk to travel very long distances just to worship & many who did try just gave up. The Church of Scotland are out of touch with rural people especially those who work the land. Rural people are more traditional & respect the teaching brought to us through the Bible not the over liberal teaching that so often happens in The Church of Scotland.

I live in Scotland. I haven't turned away from Christianity - in fact, I have been studying my bible more and growing in my faith more than ever before!. I refuse to go to a liberal (heretical) church like CoS. The problem is that CoS (and the Scottish Episcopal Church) started becoming more and more liberal and all the bible believing Christians left. I left when the priest at the Scottish Episcopal Church said he no longer believed in the resurrection and they had a picture of a random guy from Mexico on the altar and preached about said random guy from mexico. I left and joined a non denominational church but unfortunately that church had such a large membership and not enough seats and room for everyone. People from all different denominations went there, CoE, brethren, baptists, presbyterians, and Episcopal Church. There isn't any other bible believing church in this county so everyone just piled in. I have now joined the Lutheran church. It is a literal desert here for any bible believing churches. I absolutely will NEVER join a liberal CoE or Scottish Episcopal church and will only go to be a witness to those who no longer consider the bible to be the Word of God, and merely see it as a suggestion rather than authoritative.

My local Church of Scotland minister came back from the General Assembly a few years ago and said that the Church of Scotland is still looking for a big idea!! Birnie Kirk is currently used to celebrate the Catholic Mass, as was its original purpose.

True for CoE as well, many people are leaving the CoE is not because of leaving the faith, rather, is because of wanting to be faithful to Christ and be in a true gospel proclaimed & healthy church.

So glad to hear this. People aren't as gullable to religious dogma. In this day and age where people can fact check what they're being told, the hold over them just isn't there. Only those who blindly believe and want to be told what to believe without questioning will have a faith to defend. As someone who has survived a fundamentalist background I can now see the problems with Christanity. My best wishes to anyone who accepts the belief but personally I'm glad to see people awakening to reason and evidence based conclusions over faith based ones.

Have a look at the history of "The Tron Church" in Glasgow, formerly a church called St. Georges Tron who wanted to remain true to the historic, biblical Christian faith. I think that this sums up the recent history of the Church of Scotland. I say this with sadness, as a former member of the Church of Scotland.

The Kirk has apostatised from the Christian faith. Knox is turning in his grave. Come out of her my people.

I live in Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 & Churches here have been sold for decades it’s extremely sad. The Church of Scotland is woke I’m afraid, according to one minister there is any way to God including Buddha 😳 & telling his parish that don’t bother to read the OT. Not al ministers will be like this, but if it’s coming from the top 🤷‍♀️ You can see this play out in the Book of Revelation when the good Lord in His letters to the churches. You won’t see mosques being sold off.

Oh Dan, very much enjoyed your attempt at pronouncing Corstorphine (it's Kah-STORE-fin).

I think that Scottish independence is the new national religion. People have faith in that rather than a Saviour who wants to save everyone regardless of who they are or where they come from. If you question independence you are seen as anti Scottish. It definitely has contributed to the demise of the Church of Scotland. I don't know how much of it is caused by accepting same sex marriage but I know the faith many have in independence to 'save' Scotland.

Where are the likes of William Still, Eric Alexander, George and James Philip “the heavenly twins”?

I have started to go to church in my late 20s after being agnostic then atheist my entire life. My eyes were opened when I actually started to read the Bible. What opened my eyes were the teachings of Jesus, the value in his words and realising if these values were applied to the world today would be 100s of times better off than we are now, particularly understanding the human condition on greed and why encouraging it with things like consumerism eventually leads to Decadence and eventually societal collapse. My concern with the church or in this case my aging congregation is that they believe convincing people of Jesus's miracles and thusly accepting him as God is good enough, that the rest of your journey will follow suite. Frankly as a gen Z, with the education and the peers I'm surrounded by, that dog just doesn't hunt. Convincing my generation to believe in Jesus because of his miracles falls flat on its face because we are educated to pick apart such claims. However, no one in my generation would refute that charity is good, or that greed at the expense of others isn't a bad thing, applying the teachings of Jesus are as important as believing he died for our sins. How many churches now are decaying and falling apart. How many food banks are there in Britain. How many Christians moan about the state of their streets and that the council should do something about it? You can't expect people to be inspired by your religious convictions, if you don't stand by them. How much faith did those who built the churches have? In times that they didn't have the construction equipment we have today, and yet we can't even remove weeds from church gutters, or put on a fresh coat of paint. Young people see this and it doesn't inspire, individuals take better care of their cars and trainers than whole congregations take care of their churches, or their poor, or their communities as a whole. I feel like I'm saying this with a log in my eye, but accepting a hard truth and looking to Jesus for guidance past it is the only way Christians should look at these things.

And why are Yre not giving the churches to yhe Evanjellical and pentecostal most have to do their services in hotels etc and other unsuitable buildings

People don't want a another social club, they can join WI or Rotary for that....

Hi Rev Dan. Just came across your channel for the first time today. Have valued your reflections in this video. Just subscribed! Greetings from Tasmania.

The sad predicament of the C of Shas been building for years. Scottish Church history shows very clearly the doctrinal decline of the C of S, since the Disruption 1843. Most ministers certainly up to the 70`s were regarded as the most highly educated of all churches ministry. Most were MA, BD`s but as one cynic said years ago the church is going to hell by degrees. Evangelicals have had a rough ride in recent times. Added to that is the infiltration of the ungodly philosophy of the Freemasons. My wife`s late uncle was high up in the "craft" and told me in the late 70`s that "the present Moderator, the immediate previous Moderator and the incoming one, are all brothers". How can a Christian be in such an organisation which reduces the Lord to being on a par with the "founders" of non-Christian religions, the name of Jesus cannot be invoked in prayer in the "Lodge", only the "great architect". Is it any wonder that in the words of the Lord to the seven churches in Revelation 2-3, that their lamp has been removed from the lampstand The only way back for the C of S is to take seriously the injunction of the Lord as laid down in 2. Chronicles 7:14ff.

I think there is much to think about one way and another about the state of COS. The buildings have been an issue for a long while the high costs of maintenance, heating and for many limitations to what could be done in a building with fixed pews. Over the years some ministers and congregations understood the need for opening up to community activity and either revamping their church or building a more versatile building with capability of earnings to subsidise costs as declining numbers struggled to raise from offerings to keep afloat. There are numerous reasons for the fall in numbers and has been in progress for many years and although same sex marriage and lack of gospel preaching seem to be attracting the blame there is much more to it the change in living practices through the sixties up until now has affected the interest in younger people, many churches with few under the age of forty and been like that for many years. I assume the suggestion of poor gospel teaching is linked to same sex relationship/marriage, divorce, illegitimacy, and any other peoples considered unfit, considering Jesus was a pretty inclusive sort of fellow who didn’t feel the need to be disassociating himself with others and got into some pretty hot water because of it, and well eventually was put to death leaving us with little doubt whatsoever that if we wished to improve our world and allow humanity to live peacefully in a just, forgiving and truth filled way could only be achieved through love, loving ourself, our God and all others regardless of who or how they were, a wholly inclusive humanity just as our God wished and hugely important that we understood God required us help Him on earth to keep His promises, show His care for us, allowing the ups and downs of life not find us falling by the wayside. Jesus knew full well this all would be less than easy our human traits seldom far away, but we are assured the prodigals welcome when we fall short and stray. The Sadducees and Pharisees struggled with this sort of teaching, it quite something if we struggle now failing to understand Jesus was not just turning the tables over but turning the whole system upside down, I would see little sense in us trying to rewrite the gospel message to suit a system that had been organised to suit an empirical system, been used inappropriately for the best part of its existence, and horrendously sad if we cannot get over the fact that Jesus was not intending to begin any further ruling systems but allowing his faith be broadened and used for all peoples not the exclusivity that was holding many on the margins.

I agree entirely, The Church of England is also doing the same unfortunately

Let the management stop selling the churches. No other religion must be allowed to buy the buildings

Shalom with love from Pastor Princewill Chibuike Ogueri from the republic of the Gambia The churches in Scotland must , I said must be purify first , before it can stand again , The church of Yahusha is holy and pure ,it is not a mixture of LGBTQ , freeman and illuminati , The church of Yahusha must be governor with strickness not flexible law and tradition of men , shalom

The good news is that the true church of Christ, will be kept to the end and presented undefiled and pure at the marriage supper of the Lamb. The true church is gaining from this as all things works for the good of those who love God, who were called in accordance to his purpose.

I left the church of Scotland last year and I gave up my part time employment in the church. An edict served on the congregation including myself , gave me the final push to leave. I don't agree with female ordination, as stated on scripture. The edict was served, I needed time out, and sadly left all I known. But happy to give it all up to follow jesus. I felt jesus, repentance, the kingdom of heaven, the gospel stories sermons focus on matthew mark look and john. I lost trust in the church ministers interpretation of female ordination, and other things seemed not right. Jesus says you can tell from their fruit.

DAN: As an Anglo-Scot (Scots Episcopalian mother) you need to distinguish between The Church of Scotland (Presbyterian, and Established) and the Scottish Episcopal Church (which has 'bishops'; and is Anglican, but Disestablished). I suspect BOTH are in trouble: and for exactly the same reasons that the Church of England is in trouble. People no longer seek meaning 'beyond themselves' in, and for, life. What is worse, is the Church lacks people with the intellectual power to challenge this attitude. Even the Humanists do better in this regard. The consequence is that the churches, generally, are left to people who have always sought to weaponise our scriptures to their bigotted ends; instead of the 'ends' of God. God is not Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Nor is God, Paul. And God is certainly not the same thing as 'scripture' (as the Muslims teach). But God was in JESUS: and this is why Christians need to study Christology. Especially the Christology of contemporary JEWISH scholars, such as Geza Vermes, Paula Fredriksen, and Daniel Boyarin. Fredriksen's book, 'WHEN CHRISTIANS WERE JEWS' is a particular eye-opener. She expounds on the context in which orthodox Christians - such as you and I - are able to claim, the whole of the bible (even the entire Cosmos) is about the Christ, the Messiah. It is in that context that the 'Gospel' exists and needs teaching: not in the weaponisations of individual verses. The problem with the majority of church buildings is that they no lnger suit the requirements of the Church: they are too big! Thus, the Church does need to 'shed' many of these inheritances from the past.

Sadly following Jesus often has little relationship to institutional Christianity. There is a great deal of current interest in spiritual matters and wisdom and how many would look to Christianity for answers. We seem more interested in sexual and racial and social matters than in the love of God and knowing God.

Don’t crow Dan, the attendance at C of E services is less than 500,000 from a population of 60,000,000. Take the plank out of your own eye first.

Why would i want to join a church split off from rome in the 15th century because Henry wanted to marry Anne Bolyne ?

The Church of Scotland has lost a million members since the 1950s, not since 2001. That was a mistake. In 2001 they had about 600,000 members and now they have just over 250,000. That’s a big enough drop without exaggerating it

The rot set in when the C of E and C of S converted from Roman Catholicism but kept the dog collars and robes among other things.

The consequences of not preaching the true gospel is why,if you are preaching a different gospel to what was previously taught by the first apostles then this is inevitable

Sadly, as a Roman Catholic and Christian, in my humble opinion, what I see is preaching the Gospel and the Wrd of Christ in public would probably get one arrested. An interesting fact the priest at the church I attend gave out the sad statistic that the last last practising Catholic would probably come to be around 2065. A staggering statistic and the same probably would br the same for other Christian denominations and it behoves us to try and spread the Wrd. God bless from Essex.

you keep quoting this figure of the CofS losing a million members since 2000. 1 million is 20% of the population of Scotland. In 2000 much less than 10% of the population attended church - all churches put together. This figure is due to my parents' generation, who were only ever on the books because their parents had them baptised, dying off. It is meaningless wrt basically anything.

IMO, people nowadays have lost the fear of God and lost faith in God, hence the decline in attendance. People see the horrors in the world virtually in real time and ask, "Where is God in all of this?" Furthermore, the Christian churches have been hamstrung by politics; unable to go out and preach and reach out to the public in general. Like the words from the movie, "The Matrix"...."All that has a beginning, must have an end."

I love this channel - it is as innocent as a dove and yet as wise as a serpent, as Jesus instructed. As for the general picture in western Christianity (no longer Christendom) - IMO there is too much emphasis on the New Testament (redacted for "trigger warnings" like Matthew 19 on marriage) and not enough on the Old Testament, and that goes for all the denominations including mine (Roman Catholic). Jesus was steeped in the OT, and referenced it all the time (it helps if you have a cross-referencing Bible). The Old Testament chronicles a lot of bad behaviour by humans and a lot of consequent wrath from the Almighty - but also a lot of repentance by humans and a lot of streams of love and mercy from the Almighty AFTER repentance (by a whole nation, more often than particular individuals). Why did the African slaves in captivity base all their songs on the Old Testament? - because it has all the great stories, all the great misery, all the great despair, and yet all the great joy that the Promised Land might deliver (after death). It was the same for the European bonded labourers in Europe and North America - and later on Down Under, which was initially peopled by desperately poor people who had turned to crime to survive. Now our high and mighty First World is going back to those times as more and more people struggle to earn a crust in supposedly "rich" nations. Indeed, most of the First World has only just emerged from dire poverty - and some of it has never left dire poverty, especially in Scotland. The New Testament was written when Christianity was young, in overdrive, and fiercely dissident against ruling powers and principalities (Rome, the Pharisees, etc.). The Old Testament is for those who are mired in iniquity along with their own governors - i.e. both governors and governed need to renew their covenant with the Lord, soonish, or the Lord is going to get mad and this is an alarming spectacle, though it can have a joyous ending.

I don't agree with you Dan - the first responsibility of the Church of Christ should be "love your neighbour", in this way we give real meaning to the command "Love God". In Romans 12.1 Paul says that giving ourselves as a "living sacrifice" is our "true worship". I believe that the decline in interest in the Church and God is because we have far too much emphasis on Sunday - the most important days for Christian witness are Monday to Saturday. I have strong Scottish connections and am really sad to read about the decline of the Church of Scotland (in which my wife and I were married). I fear that LLF will have a similar effect on the C of E!! Graham Reardon

Both C of S and C of E are in error and heretic: Return to Mother Church 📿🙏

Sorry to put a negative comment in here but I think that although what you said at the start about our job is to preach the gospel is quite correct, the link you then make to Church growth I think is not correct. In saying "as the world population increases so should Christianity in each Country" you imply that if the Church does not grow then we are not doing our job. Possibly but not necessarily. Our job is to preach the gospel in relevant ways and wherever we can after that it is out of our hands. God grows the Church as people respond to him. Unless I have read it wrong the gospel quite clearly indicates that there will be stony ground, hard hearted people who do not respond. Empty Churches do necessarily equate to the gospel not having been being preached. Christianity will not automatically grow as the gospel is preached, hopefully it will but we have done our job if the gospel is preached. As far as growth as Church growth is concerned that is all that is asked of us.

When you said that you are not social services, you are wrong. The first thing is to understand scripture. The second is to put that knowledge into practice. When someone needs help as Job did, do you say believe in Christ and that you must have done something wrong? Did not God reveal Himself and say I AM EVERYTHING. God then admonished Job's friends. Most people work shifts because commerce was placed before God. The Torah would explain this as Pharoah enslaving the human consciousness that believes in God to build Pharoahs world. People walk away from that which gives no help and promises hardship to live on after death. Exodus is about God bringing a people back to life through understanding and collectively living in God's reflection. Does the church act like Moses? No. God talks to Moses who talks to Aaron who connects to the priests who serve God and who pass on God's knowledge to the tribes who look after the animals and flocks. From the Ark which held God's projected word onto the stone tablets worked by Moses, surrounded by the Taberacle and then the priests and the tents of the tribes. Jesus tried to put the heart back into the peoples understanding of God. The Gospels conflict because the writers did not fully understand. No one scribed what Jesus said as He spoke. If you worship Jesus and the apostles and Paul, do you worship God? Do you worship the Ark or the messanger rather than God and His desire set out in Genesis. If you say it will be what it will be in the name of Jesus, you might as well go to the nearest pub and wait for the end or death. Adam is supposed to overcome death. Not to die in the first place. This is why you must understand what we are here. I wish you well and may the truth be revealed openly for all to see.

I don't agree with edicts the church serves. Not everyone reads the bible, and trust too much in their church minister/pastor. Its deceptive. You need to hear the chief shepherd's voice jesus. Liberial seems to satisfy their own desires