Community
27 June, 2025
A Scottish twist to church
WITH the Celtic call of the Robbie Burns Festival just around the corner, Camperdown’s Uniting Church will be sharing in hymns and tartan at this Sunday’s service.
The service will feature a number of hymns written by Scottish people, with those attending invited to wear tartan to mark the occasion.
The mastermind behind the themed service, Bill Duncanson, said the idea started when he grew curious about Scottish hymns.
“First of all, I didn’t think it would be a bad idea to have a service with a lot of music like popular hymns – being the Robbie Burns Celtic Festival, I did a bit of research to see what the most popular hymns written by Scottish people were across the Christian churches and I found there was plenty,” he said.
“Rita Bowden and I were the two people who were going to lead the service that day, and we both thought it was a good idea.
“Hopefully people, particularly those with a bit of Scottish heritage, will come along to church.
“Please wear or bring something tartan, and at morning tea we might have some shortbreads – we’ll do our best from the Uniting Church to celebrate and enjoy the theme of the weekend.”
Hymns which will feature at the service will include ‘I heard the voice of Jesus say’, ‘Abide with me’, ‘O love that will not let me go’ ‘Stand up and bless the Lord’, and ‘Will you come and follow me’.
The hymns come from a variety of hymnists from 1800s writers James Montgomery, Horatius Bonar, Henry Lyte and George Matheson to modern-day hymnist John Bell.
“I just think that, particularly being a weekend with a Scottish theme, people will go away refreshing their memories of good music written by Scots or, if they didn’t know anything about it, a bit of education,” Mr Duncanson said.
“Some people who do come to Camperdown for the festival pop in and worship.
“If they’re looking to go to church on the weekend with us, they can enjoy the Scottish flavour with us.
“Before the days of the Uniting Church formation in Australia in 1977, the Uniting Church here was St Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, so it was very much associated with Scotland.”
Read More: Camperdown