35 mins
The Big Question
QUESTION
Melodie Crumlin, CEO PEEK (Possibilities for Each and Every Kid), and member of Glasgow: Gallowgate.
“Growing up in a huge estate in Glasgow during the 1980s wasn’t easy but there was lots going on and for me most of that took place in Castlemilk Parish Church.
“Each Sunday I went along to Sunday school, each Friday night I went to the youth club and on a Thursday I attended Girls’ Brigade.
“My fondest memories about church were the friendships I formed and the day trips when the community came together to spend sunny days in the church grounds or on the beach in Ayr.
“Young and old shared food, stories, activities, song and conversation. The ladies, including my mum, supported the minister in his work and made the church run like clockwork.
“For some of my friends church was a chore as they were made to go. For some it was a safe haven where they were fed, and had folk who cared for them. For me it was my choice, it was a place in which I felt a sense of belonging and curiosity as I learned about and it was through the church and my time in the Glasgow Youth Choir that my passion for singing came.
“Recently my family visited Castlemilk Parish Church and it was lovely to see so many familiar and welcoming faces.
What was lovelier was to watch my five-year-old daughter skip away into the ‘Jaf a Club’ then come through and share everything she had learned and created to the wider congregation near the end of the service.”
The Rev Scott Burton, minister, Perth: St Matthew’s
“My upbringing as part of Mount Florida Church on the south side of Glasgow is a massive reason why I’m a minister in the Kirk today.
“Back in the 1970s we had a large Sunday School with beginners, juniors and senior classes.
“I remember very fondly the teachers who took us on trips, taught us bible stories and were encouraging, supportive and positive people. The 83rd company of the Boys’ Brigade met there too, with, I recall, around eight squads of ten boys in each within the company section alone!
“They were years filled with music, football, displays and gymnastics and my memories are very, very fond ones indeed.
“Sadly, my mother was very unwell for quite a while in my youth and during her hospitalisation, our district elder’s wife, Mrs Jack, gave such wonderful support that I’ve often looked back on her as a key demonstration of what ‘showing your faith by your actions’ looked like.
“Similarly, when I went of the rails as a teenager and ended up in a police station, it was Mr Hinslewood, the BB brass tutor who picked me up at 3am as my father was on nightshift.
“Such compassion, as well as bible class lessons and parades and services, all played their part in shaping my call to faith and ministry, and certainly encourage me to play my part, now that I approach 50 years of age, to encourage the youth in our Perth church and parish in this year of young people.”
The Rev Sheila Kirk, minister at Deer Parish Church and Clerk to the Presbytery of Buchan
“My memories of church as a youngster are memories viewed from the manse.
Being a child in the late 1950s and early 1960s, I am of a generation that will remember sitting on those ‘wee wooden chairs’ at Sunday School.
“Not many children will have early memories of The Guild, but I, and my bag of Lego sat in the back corner of a good number of those meetings, while my mother fuliflled her expected role as Guild President.
“Being behind the scenes at coffee mornings and jumble sales at an early age inlfuences your enthusiasm for them when you grow up, but a regular bonus at home was the extra bits from endless trays of tablet and treacle toffee which were produced as the manse contribution.
“As a youngster, adults in the church could seem balffing.
“Why was I always being asked on Christmas morning what I had got from Santa?
“Why are these adults asking me this – it’s obvious – presents just don’t happen until after church!
“As a manse child you are always aware of being observed and being a repository for other people’s expectations, but we could watch the adults – and that could be quite an education.
“Yet, for all that, like a stick of rock, if you were to cut me in half, you would find the words ‘Church of Scotland’ running all the way through.”
Mark Evans DCS, Head of Spiritual Care, NHS Fife
“My early memories of Church have less to do with events and far more to do with relationships. It could be tough growing up in housing schemes such as West Pilton in the early 1980s.
“Gangs, drugs and violent crime were all part of daily life.
“Church provided an escape – it was a place of welcome and safety – and for me a place of beauty and colour.
“Even as a child – I knew that what happened in church was very dif erent from what happened ‘outside’. At Church the unseen was just as important as the seen.
“Of all the people at Church, it was my Sunday School Superintendent Jess Wood who made the biggest impact.
“For me Mrs Wood WAS Church and she more inl uential and important in my life than she ever knew. She knew each child (and their families). She sent birthday cards and Christmas cards and visited at Easter with flowers for Gran and a chocolate egg for me.
“Every Sunday she asked how we were and what kind of week we had. She praised our paintings and crafts as if they where a Rembrandt.
“Jess taught me more about ministry and caring than any church course, displayed practical theology better than any lecture.
“Perhaps the most important memory, the one that has shaped me and which has stayed with me – was the sense of laughter and joy and the sense of being accepted and loved for being me.”
The Rev Sally Foster-Fulton, Head of Christian Aid Scotland
“Before the stories I heard and the questions I asked and the rebellion that’s part of everybody’s becoming, there was a sense of home – not one clear, vivid memory, but an abiding, surrounding love.
“And there were people whose lives left their mark – Miss Marie Adams, who taught all the children catechism.
“You sat on her front porch and memorised and digested catechism and lime sherbert – and debated deep theological questions like ‘why does it say ‘man’s chief end is to glorify and enjoy God forever’? Surely it means all of us!?’
And Dr Joe Gettys, who taught me to embrace my doubts and questions – he called them ‘the ants in the pants of faith. It keeps it moving!’
“I grew up on the buckle of the Bible Belt in South Carolina, and there were cultural norms and deep-seated prejudices that lew against the ‘family of God’ the church aspired to be; but, I was encouraged to wrestle with those hard questions.
“And that kind of love is strong – it evolves from that earliest sense of belonging to an understanding of love that is constantly calling us to each other.
“We are unique, of ini nite value and purpose – like everyone else we share the planet with.
“That early ‘comfort’ houses a constant challenge – how do (do we?) welcome with the same depth and compassion and respect? If everyone and everything is a gift, how do we share it justly?”
This article appears in the April 2018 Issue of Life and Work
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