Tune into your iGod, Kirk urges worshippers

AND the word of the Lord came unto me in a (tele) vision. Churchgoers in Scotland may soon be turning up at services to watch a minister deliver a service by video link.

The Church of Scotland is to consider setting up virtual ministries as one solution to a chronic lack of ministers. One post in every six is now empty.

A pilot scheme on the Orkney islands of Shapinsay, Flotta, Hoy and Rousay will connect churches on the four islands by a high-speed video link which will allow the congregations to share sermons, Bible readings and even sing hymns together.

If the trial is successful, the scheme may be adopted in other areas, particularly in rural areas where it can be hard to recruit new ministers.

Neither Flotta nor Hoy has had a minister for nine years, while Shapinsay previously shared a minister who has now retired.

The virtual island ministry is just one of the ideas being presented to the Church of Scotland General Assembly which opens in Edinburgh later this month.

If the Kirk approves the Orkney pilot, it will see giant screens being erected in churches and connected by a link which will even allow worshippers to join a service with parishioners on other islands.

The Reverend Trevor Hunt, presbytery clerk of Orkney, said: "We don't want congregations just sitting there watching television as if it was Songs of Praise so we want to make it interactive. Somebody might do a Bible reading, somebody else might lead the prayer."

Because of travel difficulties, the main residence for the minister serving all four islands would probably be on Orkney Mainland.

Members of each congregation would be trained to co-ordinate the services when the minister was elsewhere.

Jan Gordon, manager of the Mustard Seed Christian Bookshop in Kirkwall, said the virtual ministry could be a godsend: "Customers from the islands say they feel very cut off. With the weather up here, even if a minister is due, sometimes the boat doesn't come and you are left feeling very high and dry."

Fiona Cowan, of the inter- denominational Love Orkney group, which aims to hold prayer meetings on all 21 islands, said that the islanders were already well used to video conferencing technology.

"It isn't just pie in the sky. People here have video conferencing appointments with doctors and you can even use it to talk to your relatives at hospital in Aberdeen – they wheel a computer to the side of the bed."

But she said it would be hard to synchronise services completely and "it might work for sermons but not for worship".

The Orkney parishes are currently applying for £100,000 to set up the pilot scheme, which will use a superfast microwave link to connect the screens.

Ministries Council secretary Martin Scott said: "The idea is to connect very small parishes which are hard to get to. It would mean there would always be a service on every week without a minister having to rush between islands."

A spokesman for the Church of Scotland said the kirk was considering a range of different ideas to tackle the problems of vacant ministries.

The Church of Scotland now has 190 vacancies from 1,200 posts across Scotland. Around one in six ministries is vacant and, in Caithness, three out of 11 ministries are currently without an incumbent.