Action of Churches Together in Scotland

Action of Churches Together in Scotland (ACTS) is a national ecumenical organisation of churches in Scotland, founded in 1990. It is the successor to the former Scottish Council of Churches. ACTS is one of the four national ecumenical bodies in the UK, with equivalent bodies being Churches Together in England, Cytûn in Wales and the Irish Council of Churches, plus Churches Together in Britain and Ireland. The ACTS office is located in Stirling.

Since April 2014, the General Secretary is the Reverend Matthew Ross, a minister of the Church of Scotland. The Deputy General Secretary (since 2011) is the Reverend Ian Boa of the United Free Church of Scotland; he succeeded the Revd Lindsey Sanderson of the United Reformed Church. There are also two Programme Officers to support the work of ACTS.

When first created, the office of ACTS was located at the former Scottish Churches House in Dunblane. In 2006 the ACTS office was moved to Forrester Lodge, adjecent to Inglewood House in Alloa, but in October 2015 it was relocated to Stirling, in a self-contained office within the headquarters building of Volunteer Scotland. Scottish Churches House was opened in 1960, closed in 2011 and subsequently converted into a hotel.

ACTS is a place where churches meet, experience, reflect, share and act together. There are a number of projects which ACTS coordinates across Scotland. It is not intended that ACTS should develop into a "superchurch". Prior to 2003, four member churches of ACTS were part of the "Scottish Churches Initiative for Union" (which sought institutional unity - a project which ACTS was not part of), but a negative vote at the General Assembly in 2003 necessitated the withdrawal of the Church of Scotland from SCIFU. Henceforth, greater emphasis has been placed on the development of Local Ecumenical Partnerships.

The principle of being Churches Together is of central importance to the work of ACTS. Essentially, this is known as the "Lund Principle" (which was adopted in Lund by churches at the third world conference on Faith and Order in August 1952.) This states: "the churches should act together in all matters ... except those in which deep difference of conviction compel them to act separately"

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