A Moray church congregation has taken unusual steps in an effort to entice a new minister to their parish.
St Rufus, Botriphnie and Grange Church has been without a minister for more than a year.
And now, the parishioners have produced a new music video to highlight the bustling community life which exists in Keith.
The congregation wrote the words for the appeal and set it to music with clips from events organised by the church and a series of attractions in Keith.
Would-be applicants can see dozens of shoppers filing through the church’s vibrant Christmas market, the choir rehearsing for a performance and a whistle-stop tour along some of the town’s busy streets.
Passionate congregation members sing: “Standing in the centre of the friendly town of Keith, is a church community, a new minister it seeks.”
The music video is the latest recruitment drive after parishioners were unsuccessful with more orthodox measures.
Esther Green, secretary of the vacancy committee, said: “We’ve already done the traditional advert in the Church of Scotland’s Life and Work magazine and set up a website to boost the parish profile.
“We were sitting round the table one night and came up with the idea for this video. It didn’t take long to come up with ideas to show off everything that’s going on.”
The Keith group is one of seven congregations in Moray currently without a minister. Finding replacements is one of the biggest challenges currently facing the Church of Scotland – the number of ministers fell by about a quarter across the country to 786 last year.
A retirement crisis could be looming with more than three quarters of the current post-holders older than 50.
Mrs Green added: “Keith, and the whole of Moray really, is a fantastic place to come and live. We just wanted to show everything that it had to offer.
“We’re still an active church, too, with lots of younger members – it’s a lot more than people just sitting in pews on Sunday’ mornings. It’s so much more vibrant.”
A Church of Scotland spokesman said: “We don’t underestimate the scale of the challenge facing congregations like Keith.
“We have been encouraged by the interest we’ve received since we launched our ‘Tomorrow’s Calling’ campaign to promote parish ministry last year.
“But new candidates will take time to train before they are ready.”
The video is available to watch at the church’s website www.strufus.org.