Nearly 200 years after it sent its ministers off to Africa, China and India to spread the good news of Christianity, the Church of Scotland is to begin missionary work much closer to home, among the heathen population of Edinburgh. And, in keeping with these increasingly Godless times, it will operate not from a church, but from a flat in Granton, close to the city's new Waterfront.

The move comes as Edinburgh Presbytery yesterday adopted a radical plan across the city that it hopes will arrest a decline in church attendances and tap in to an expanding population whose new members have shown little inclination to attend Sunday services.

“We do not live in days where the Gospel finds an easy reception, so the health of Christian communities is severely tested,” George Whyte, the clerk of the Presbytery, said. “The people who live within the bounds of our Presbytery need the Gospel even if they are unaware of this fact. To be a missionary church is surely a more fulfilling task than clinging on to what must inevitably sink.”

The flat in Granton will be the base for a community leader, whose post has been funded for three years. His brief will be to build a Christian-based community along the Waterfront, said Mr Whyte. The Presbytery will also seek to improve its “offer” in the city centre, where individual churches provide midweek services, a minister to groups of workers and to homeless people, and attempt to provide pastoral care on the streets.

These moves reflect a growing alarm that large areas of the city have slipped beyond the reach of the Christian message and address particular concerns about the Waterfront. This area, with 30,000 new homes slowly evolving between Granton and Leith, has been billed as the biggest urban initiative in Edinburgh since the creation of the New Town but, unlike the 18th-century planners, today's designers have so far not seen fit to build churches or even include community spaces.

“There are thousands of homes going up along the Waterfront, but people just sleep in these places. Their lives are effectively spent in the city. They travel to town, make their choices in town,” said Mr Whyte. “The church needs to recognise that the important community is not necessarily around people's houses, but the places they make their friends.”

To make matters worse, many old established neighbourhood churches closed long ago. One former Presbyterian church in Leith is now the leading Sikh temple in the city; another, in Newhaven, is a climbing centre. Evangelical activity around the Ocean Terminal shopping centre is limited to leafleting, “mall-walking” and the occasional burst of song at Christmas.

The statistics tell their own story: across the city church membership fell by nearly 1,000 in 2007-08 to 32,375, while Edinburgh's population grew by 2,500 to 471,650 over the same period.

Mr Whyte said that it was time for churches in Edinburgh to wake up to the fact that society had changed, and to accept that they too had to adapt if they were survive.

“There has been a presumption for too long that we live life now as we did in the 1950s, when people often worked regular hours within their own community,” Mr Whyte said. “We need the same kind of spirit, but not the kind of format - we have to address Edinburgh in ways that are appropriate for the people who live here.”

A report prepared by Mr Whyte was adopted by Edinburgh Presbytery on Tuesday night. “This is not just about keeping the show on the road, but the pace of change around us is incredibly quick, and we are long overdue in responding to change,” he added.

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