Rumours of the death of the Church of Scotland are exaggerated. While the Kirk is unquestionably going through a difficult time, there are signs of new life. Interest in becoming a minister would appear to be growing.
I recently heard an interview with the Kirk’s latest ordinand, the Rev Stuart Love. Stuart, who is 25, worked for several years as a sales assistant at WH Smith in Hamilton.
Describing himself as “excited and nervous,” he added, “I believe this is what God has called me to do with my life.”
Stuart’s appointment follows the ordinations of another two bright 25-year-olds – the Revs Michael Mair and Dr Graham Deans.
So what’s all this business of a call to the ministry about? It’s a complex and sometimes mysterious thing. The best way to explain it might be for me to look back at my own experience.
There is certainly not a single drop of ecclesiastical blood in my family – they were miners, mechanics, painters and decorators.
When I was at school, the only thing I wanted to be was a writer. When a vacancy for a cub reporter arose on the Cowdenbeath Advertiser and Kelty News, I applied for it and got it.
The rector of Beath High School was appalled. He didn’t have a high view of journalism.
If I’d told him I was going to be a banjo player in a brothel he would have been better pleased.
He wanted me to go to university, but my mind was made up. And so, at the age of 16, I started covering golden weddings, court cases, football matches, greyhound races and funerals. I even tipped the greyhounds for national papers, despite knowing nothing about greyhounds.
Death was never far from the surface of a mining community. I cannot forget to this day the anxious women, their pale, strained faces framed by headscarves, waiting at the pithead for news of their men.
I had to visit the bereaved relatives to get their stories. Strangely, I found myself being a pastor as well as a newshound. I underwent an evangelical conversion.
I loved journalism. I moved to Edinburgh, to work for the Edinburgh Evening News. It was very exciting.
But something was nagging away at me, demanding an answer. I started to ask questions about wider meaning. Some people suggested that I should become a minister. Jings. The questions persisted. At the age of 23, the drumbeat reached a crescendo. I had to decide. Seven years after I had horrified my school rector by telling him that I was going to be a journalist, I felt called by God to leave journalism and study for the ministry of the Church of Scotland.
Are these things written in the stars? God only knows. I didn’t hear voices. It was a burgeoning, deepening conviction. All I knew at the time was that it was a journey I had to embark upon. There was a river I had to cross, a transition I had to make.
Eight years in the tough housing scheme of Easterhouse in Glasgow taught me what ministry on the edge was about. It was a fantastic, demanding, experience. Then another call, this time to be Leader of the ecumenical Iona Community. I had been much influenced by George MacLeod: founder of the Iona Community, a visionary, a brilliant preacher, an aristocratic socialist, a Celtic mystic and poet, a charismatic mass of contradictions, a risk-taker for Christ, a man after my own heart.
Fast forward. In 1990, I was called to be minister of St Magnus Cathedral. I loved Orkney, and I loved parish ministry, particularly visiting the people.
After 11 years at the cathedral, we had completed the building of the new St Magnus Centre. Time to step down. I experienced yet another nudging – this time to full-time writing. Full circle.
Full-time service in the Church is a great vocation, and I am glad to see a rise in interest. Writing is every bit as much a vocation as the parish ministry. It is a more solitary vocation, requiring great discipline.
Vocation is not a static thing. Nor is it restricted to clerical life. In the Christian understanding of life, everyone has a vocation, whether religious or not: yes, you, dear reader.
The thing is to find that vocation, to be open to it, to live it, to love it.
Graham Deans, Michael Mair, Stuart Love, and all those brave enough – and even daft enough – to join you, go and live your calling to the full. You will be blessed.