Bruce is on a mission!

For many, Bruce Lockhart needs no introduction. You might have met him on the beach at Elie, or running the children’s strand at the Big Celebration, at a church holiday club or leading an SU Holiday.

If you live in the Perth, Kinross and Fife area, you’ll know him as the Regional Worker, where he has inspired so many young people to explore and develop their Christian faith and contribute as young leaders and volunteers.

Bruce and I were catching up to talk about his new role as the Missions Development Manager at SU Scotland. After 20 years as Regional Worker for Perth, Kinross and Fife, Bruce has taken on new challenges, helping to develop SU Scotland’s strategy for missional work right across the country.

Q: Why this job and why now?

Over the last few years I’ve been aware of God speaking to me about having a role in missions development, but it only became clear what that might actually look like when my colleague, Tim Raynes, moved to the new role of Ministry at the Margins Lead. For me, there has always been a strong sense of calling to missions-related work. Recently that has been confirmed with some really direct guidance about this being the moment to 'step out of the boat'.

It’s a big job and one that’s very different from what I’ve been doing for the last two decades, when, for so much of the time, I have been working directly with children and young people. Now, my role will be to try and see the wider context, understand the barriers and help us, across SU Scotland, grow the missions work we are doing. So yes, totally, I am depending on God, and doing it in his strength, not mine. I believe God is saying, 'walk behind me,' and this is shaping my approach to strategy more than anything. Praying and strategising are very closely connected. I know… we’re all involved in mission, not just me! I am totally motivated by our desire to help every child and young person respond to the significance of Jesus.

Fundamentally it’s about SU Scotland supporting churches to reach their communities. We aren’t quite ready to put that formally into words, but that will be coming soon. It’s important to try and understand what we need to do at the moment, and that’s the bit we are working on right now. We are currently gathering the views of volunteers, church leaders and church communities, trying to understand better both what is happening now and what God is calling us to.

Yes and no! The world is changing and how we do mission here in Scotland has to recognise that. We have to realise that the church in Scotland is changing rapidly too and at SU Scotland we have a task in hand to respond to that. However, we also know that what we offer at the moment is valuable. Countless churches offer holiday clubs during the school holidays and we support and enable that when we can. We’re not walking away from that. But we do need to think about what 'mission' looks like now and in five years' time. We need to build on what we’re already doing.

We’ve been aware of this for some time, but one of the biggest barriers we face is the need for more Team Leaders.

We know there are lots of churches out there who would love to run holiday clubs and other types of events too. The most obvious limiting factor is leaders. It has been a massive privilege to see young people that I have worked with to step up as volunteers. My hope is to find ways for the talented young leaders we have to work together effectively to make a genuine difference.

Hilary Philips, @SU Editor and Bruce Lockhart, Missions Development Manager