To have a two-day residental conference was a departure for the Society; to have it in the tranquil setting of the Cathedral of the Isles, Cumbrae, was also an innovation. Entitled A Walk Through the Worship Mall, the conference set out to answer this question:

For the postmodern generation, religion and spirituality compete with other lifestyle choices. Not born into established faith communities, many do not have a tradition against which to measure what they are offered. Churches are responding by 'going beyond the walls', seeking 'fresh expressions', offering opportunities for new patterns of ecclesial community to 'emerge'. Local churches are also part of this, embracing new texts, tunes, forms and media. But is what we are doing all that worship can, or should, be?

Featured was a Skype conversation with Professor Bryan Spinks, now of Yale University, a former President of the Society, who had just published the book which gave us our title (The Worship Mall, Alcuin Club Collections 85, SPCK 2010, 978-0-281-06025-2), who answered questions arising from his book on the emergence of ‘consumer choice’ as a factor in the construct of worship. Matters relating to alternative worship, seeker-sensitive worship, and the ‘emerging church’ were discussed.

The main ‘terrestrial’ speaker was Rev Dr Doug Gay, Principal of Trinity College in the University of Glasgow, who spoke from the background of his recent lecture in the Chalmers series to mark the 450th anniversary of the Reformation in Scotland. Gay suggested that the church today had a ‘divided liturgical mind’ and that the fastest growing churches are the progressive or charismatic evangelical churches, challenging the idea that ‘common order’ still maintains.

The conference also heard from the Warden of the centre, David Todd, and from Graham Fender-Allison, the new worship development officer for the Church of Scotland, while Ian McCrorie and Douglas Galbraith presented a participatory evening on four centuries of Scottish psalm singing. In conclusion, Arthur Barrie, from his perspective of President of the Scottish Church Society, offered a summing up in which he opened a discussion on the Church Service Society’s contribution at the present time.