Assistant ministers make their mark in Glasgow

A number of the Church of Scotland’s latest ministers should be ready for his or her first cost, however they’re nonetheless making an affect on the communities they serve.

Non permanent Assistant minister contracts enable ministry candidates who’ve accomplished their probationary interval to be ordained into Ministry of Phrase and Sacrament with out ready to safe a cost of their very own.

The assistant minister scheme was launched as a bridging scheme while presbyteries suspended their Presbytery Plans while they deliberate and agreed their new Presbytery Mission Plans. The scheme is because of finish later in 2025.

Within the Presbytery of Glasgow, as in different presbytery areas, this has enabled new ministers to make good use of their time in “the ready room” between ordination and the subsequent stage of their ministry to fill gaps in ministry provision, assist church buildings navigate adjustments corresponding to union with one other congregation or pioneer new methods of working.

For Rev Julie Hearty, the scheme has allowed her to tackle the duty of locum at Lenzie Previous Parish Church, the place she was ordained on 30 Might final yr, turning into the primary minister to be ordained within the Lenzie church since 1876 when the church was added to the roll of Glasgow Presbytery.

“Serving as an assistant minister has invited me into the ready room,” Julie stated.

“This invitation has in some methods been an epiphany, realising my very own impatience, my relative incapacity to attend for a lot of something and in some ways has uncovered my tendency to hunt and discover, somewhat than wait. If we’re sincere who relishes the prospect of ready, for it in the end asks us to relinquish management, and maybe asks us to ask ourselves the query, what am I ready for?

“Being within the ready room for the previous yr or so, each at Springfield Cambridge and Lenzie Previous Parish Church, has ministered to me and requested me to minster to others.”

Nonetheless, she identified that ministers usually are not alone in having this “ready room” expertise.

Congregations have additionally discovered themselves awaiting growth as they undergo the expertise of Presbytery Mission Planning as a part of a nationwide restructuring course of to create a extra environment friendly church to fulfill the wants of twenty first century mission.

“Many individuals’s lives have modified over the course of the previous few years, and life not feels prefer it used to,” Julie mirrored.

.”Some discover themselves questioning what’s subsequent, will issues get higher, or will they worsen. Many have discovered themselves in life’s ready room and I’ve been given the privilege of being with them as they search the presence of God, and I’ve tried to assist every one wait nicely.”

This has included serving to individuals by presbytery planning.

She stated: “A part of my function as assistant minister has been supporting congregations to ask themselves that query, what are you ready for? For maybe in asking that query, congregations are discovering out what actually issues and that we actually are saved by religion. For individuals who ask this query and dwell by religion, by no means cease rising, usually are not simply defeated, are smart, and compassionate and are enjoyable to be round, for they’ve a quiet and assured pleasure.

“I’m grateful for that invitation into the ready room and grateful for the fruitful ministry that has taken place in my serving as an Ordained Church of Scotland Minister, albeit an ‘assistant’ one.”

New begin in a New City

Rev Fiona Crawford and Rev James Gemmell have recognized one another since learning divinity on the College of Glasgow and had been ordained collectively at St Mungo’s Church in Cumbernauld the place they launched into a pioneering crew ministry that helped carry collectively the congregations of three church buildings, St Mungo’s Kildrum and Cumbernauld Previous.

Each have additionally adopted different members of the family into ministry. Fiona’s husband Stuart is minister at King’s Park Glasgow and James’ father, additionally James, was a minister within the Highlands and Perthshire previous to his present cost at Carnwadric.

Having a member of the family “within the enterprise” has been a assist in understanding what to anticipate from ministry.

“I feel that gave us a larger appreciation earlier than we started of what ministry in all its messiness and all its fulness may be,” Fiona stated.

“With somebody within the household who’s a minister, you admire there are challenges and the lows and frustrations, however you additionally see the honour it’s to share in individuals’s life journeys from starting to finish, the satisfaction in encouraging somebody transfer from the fringes of the church group to being actively concerned, and the enjoyment of enjoying some half in them coming to religion or taking steps ahead of their religion journey. That’s so thrilling to see.”

James admits that he resisted following his father into ministry, however after initially hoping to change into a historical past instructor after which working within the insurance coverage trade for a lot of years, he realised he felt unfulfilled and started the method of making use of for ministry.

“My father’s expertise has modified not a lot my method to ministry as my method to administration of individuals,” he stated.

“I’ve recognized among the points my dad had with politics inside the church and I’m very a lot of the view that we should always get it sorted now somewhat than let it fester.”

These are classes which he was in a position to efficiently put into observe in Cumbernauld.

“A testomony to James’s pastoral abilities was that when St Mungo’s and Kildrum got here collectively, he misplaced virtually no one within the union,” Fiona stated.

“A pair went to Cumbernauld Previous as a result of their transport state of affairs was troublesome, however these aside, virtually everybody worshipping at Kildrum went on to worship on the St Mungo’s constructing. That was an enormous achievement.”

Fiona additionally paid tribute to Glasgow Presbytery Clerk Rev Dr Grant Barclay in having religion within the two new ministers to work as a crew and convey the three congregations collectively, in addition to the help offered by Rev David Denniston, who took on a mentoring function for the assistant ministers.

“I am very grateful to the presbytery for entrusting us with this,” she stated.

“I feel Grant had an actual imaginative and prescient that each one of his crew within the assistant minister posts in Glasgow had one thing to supply the Church in pretty troublesome occasions and entrusted us with some pretty difficult items of labor. His pastoral look after us has been actually good and he made certain that there have been help constructions in place.

“Getting access to a mentor was actually priceless. A number of the issues we needed to do had been fairly robust and never everybody wished to go down the identical route, so having somebody to bounce issues off was actually helpful.”

Fiona and James started with a group audit, taking a look at the place the opposite church buildings had been within the space to resolve methods to make greatest use of their assets and which buildings needs to be retained.

“We tried to take a mission-based method to that in addition to taking a look at what was sustainable and what had been the wants and alternatives within the space,” Fiona stated.

“We realised that Cumbernauld isn’t just the New City and even inside the New City, the planners had created distinct ‘city villages’, alongside the villages that had existed for lots of of years.

“We checked out what they had been already doing and the place that match with the 5 marks of mission. Bringing the kirk periods and different teams collectively to debate the way in which ahead helped them to look to the long run and see what that they had in frequent. It gave them hope past the robust selections that they had been going to need to make.

“After we started our ministry, we thought that we’d be working rather more in parallel throughout the congregations as we introduced them collectively. What we found was that the congregations had totally different approaches and totally different areas the place they wanted to be strengthened. That altered fully what we did as a crew. We realized that we might work autonomously inside a shared technique, in the direction of a shared final result.”

As pioneers in crew ministry, Fiona and James additionally produced a report on crew working which was introduced to the nationwide Church, outlining among the classes that they had realized.

Fiona stated: “It helped that we knew each other. As a result of we had constructed up a little bit of a relationship earlier than and knew one another’s strengths and weaknesses.

“In case you are not a crew participant, I do not suppose it will be for you. There must be a component of compromise and a component of being keen to let different individuals’s concepts spark your individual. That generally means giving up components of what you had envisioned, however usually which means you discover one thing higher.”

James stated: “Workforce ministry makes an enormous quantity of sense. You will get extra accomplished as a result of you may have joint working in addition to particular person working.

“What makes a great crew is that capability to be sincere with one another and the experiences over these two years, we could not have had in every other circumstance. In doing that, one of many components of the Glasgow Mission Plan has truly come collectively due to the work that we now have accomplished. We’re totally different individuals and ministers from those we had been once we had been ordained in 2022, and once more that’s due to the expertise we now have had.”

That have has formed the route Fiona’s profession has taken.

At current Fiona is spending half her time ministering at Baranark Greyfriars Church, however the remainder of her time she is a presbytery change facilitator for Glasgow Presbytery, working with congregations as they search to implement the Mission Plan.

James is at present primarily based at Tron St Mary’s following the earlier minister’s departure from the town centre church final summer time, and is now trying ahead to making use of for his first everlasting cost and bringing the teachings from his time in Cumbernauld with him.

“There was one thing so constructive about our journey,” he stated.