62 mins
Walking with a Highland Minister
PROFILE
IT is perhaps fitting that in the 50th anniversary month of the historic decision to ordain women as parish ministers in the Church of Scotland that a woman parish minister has been nominated as Moderator of this year’s General Assembly.
The Rev Susan Brown, minister of Dornoch Cathedral since 1998, is honoured to have been chosen. As one of the first woman ministers to serve in the Highlands – she was called to Killearnan in 1985 – she was also the first woman minister to serve in the presbyteries of Ross and Sutherland and has served as Moderator in both. She is the first Moderator-Designate from a Highland parish since the Very Rev Dr James Simpson in 1994 – her immediate predecessor at Dornoch.
Susan is the fourth woman to have been nominated as Moderator and the second serving female parish minister. “It is fantastic to have been elected in this 50th anniversary year of the ordination of women to ministry,” she says.
Barely five feet tall in her stocking soles, she is warm, witty and self-deprecating, but brimming with energy, determination and vigour in her drive to serve not only the Church but her local community and the world beyond. It is clear parish ministry is at the heart of all that she does. She is passionate about Dornoch and does not miss an opportunity to promote the Highland town. (Her Moderatorial outfit is being crafted by Betty Murray at Just Sew, a local business.)
Her theme for the year is ‘Walking with’, rooted in her early church life, where hillwalking was a regular activity.
However, there is a serious aim behind the theme, which will be carried into presbytery visits with walks with local people expected to be organised. The rationale is quite simple in Susan’s eyes: “Walking is good for your mental health, your physical health and it is good for your spiritual health, as well as for the environment. When you are walking you are talking to people in a diff erent way. Conversations take on diff erent flavours. You and others move – and as you do, you remember life is always a journey – and in that thought we find echoes of the road to Emmaus Road.
“I would love to have as many diff erent people as possible, within and outwith the church, joining me on diff erent walks during the year.”
Mental health is something which especially concerns Susan, who has conducted, she says, too many funerals of those who have taken their own lives during her ministry.
Born in Edinburgh, the youngest daughter of a Bilston Glen miner, James Attwell and his wife (Margaret, known as Peggy), Susan has two older sisters a twin Mo, born an hour and a quarter before her and an older sister, Sandra.
She grew up in Penicuik, worshipping at Pencuik North, firstly with the Rev Jack Beaumont and later the Rev Gordon Matthew. It was here that she first met her husband Derek at the age of ten in the church’s Sunday School. Derek and Susan are part of a group of five or six people around the same age who went on to be ordained into the ministry of the Church of Scotland from that congregation alone.
Derek is lead chaplain at Highland Health Board and chaplain to Raigmore Hospital in Inverness.
Susan says her faith was nurtured by both ministers at Penicuik North, and by her involvement not only with Sunday School, Youth Group and Scripture Union but also by links with Youth With A Mission. It was in those early formative years that she sensed a call to the ministry of the Church of Scotland.
“I probably felt called from about the age of 16 but my mother wasn’t too keen – she thought I was too small, but really she didn’t like the idea of a female minister.
“It didn’t occur to me (at that stage) that I’d never met a female minister.” Undeterred, Susan set out to study theology at New College in Edinburgh with classmate Jim Cowan (from Ayrshire but now minister in Barrhead). Both were drawn to theology as a first degree and successfully attended selection school together and have been friends ever since.
The Rev Dr Margaret Forrester was amongst those Susan was placed with as a student and from whom she learned so much – along with other ministers she found inspiring, such as the Rev Ernest Sangster in Blackhall, St Columba’s and the Rev John Carrie in South Queensferry.
”John was just great. He put the fun back into preaching. That was in 1980. He was later godfather to my son.”
In 1981 Susan and Derek tied the knot at Penicuik North, the church which had sowed the seeds of romance but also stirred a call to the ministry for both.
“I thought I was marrying a banker,” says Susan, “but Derek too felt a call to ministry.” After being licensed and after serving as a probationer at St Giles’ Cathedral for two years, Susan began searching for a parish. It was obvious that at the time there were those who were reluctant to consider a young woman, particularly as there were many applicants for a parish
But it was in 1985 she found herself called to Killearnan on the Black Isle, in a ministry that she describes as probably one of ‘the longest six-month reviewable tenures ever’ - and which ultimately lasted for 13 years.
“At my ordination, the Session Clerk took my parents aside and said: ‘Don’t worry, we’ll look after her!’”
Just over a year into her ministry, Susan discovered she was pregnant with her son, Simon, now aged 31. She braced herself to resign, but instead found the news at the Kirk Session greeted with a bottle of celebratory champagne.
“Simon used to go to old people’s homes with me, just in a sling and he was loved by them. I think I only had three or four weeks off. He and my daughter Hannah, who arrived in 1990, went everywhere as appropriate”
Her enthusiasm and passion saw the congregation swell from 30 to around 180.
“We built a hall and it was and is still, quite a vibrant congregation.
“Back then, people didn’t join the church up there, so on communion Sunday, people disappeared as they felt they were not good enough to join the Church. The first communicants’ class I had, they were all aged about 60 or 70!”
After 13 years, Susan was encouraged to consider the vacancy at Dornoch Cathedral, following the retiral of the much-loved Very Rev Dr James Simpson.
“Simon was in P7 and Hannah was in P4. It seemed to be a good time to consider a move. We went up and looked. It was good timing. It worked really well. Derek could still commute to Raigmore Hospital, where he was a chaplain
“We applied and, to be honest, I thought I was just making up the numbers. They were very enthusiastic.”
Her two decades in Dornoch have seen the congregation throw itself into serving the community with a successful application to the Church of Scotland’s Go For It fund resulting in the appointment of a Community Outreach Worker. An audit of local services and needs led to the establishment of Good Morning Sutherland, an early morning wake up call for the elderly and lonely, which has now been taken on by another charity but many more projects still serve the local community.
Moderator-Designate, the Rev Susan Brown
photo: Derek Fett Photography
Her two decades in Dornoch have seen the congregation throw itself into serving the community with a successful application to the Church of Scotland’s Go For It fund resulting in the appointment of a Community Outreach Worker.
Moderator-Designate, the Rev Susan Brown
photo: Church of Scotland
Her eyes light up as she talks about the many projects the congregation has been involved in as a result – including Natter and Nosh, a fortnightly lunch club and a weekly club for adults with learning disability, another to help with developing cooking and social skills through a bakery project (and a separate one for schoolchildren with learning disability) – and a new project, still in development, for men in sheds, linking with a local CrossReach care home.
Being visible and a huge part of the local community – Dornoch Cathedral lies at the very heart of the Highland town – Susan is also passionate about creative worship and uses the church year to help people engage with faith.
“At Lent and Easter we have created all sorts of experiences to help inspire people to look more deeply at living and growing in faith.
“That leads on to services every night during Holy Week when we get about 60 to 70 people attending each night.
“We do a dawn service on the beach on Easter Sunday morning, followed by breakfast and the main service. Then at night we do an Emmaus Road communion when we follow the two disciples and create often a big circle in the crossing round a table set for dinner.
“On the last day of the year we have a labyrinth, which was first set up by our youth group who wanted to do something for the church. The church is open for two hours. Dornoch has a massive street party on Hogmanay which brings in 3000 people. The labyrinth is open between 4pm and 6pm. You can take as long or as little time as you want, to do it. Some want to sit and watch it. It is about journey into the heart of Christ and turning round to face a new year with Christ in your heart.”
Not long after her arrival in Dornoch, in December 2000 she famously married singing superstar Madonna and her (then) husband Guy Ritchie and baptised the couple’s son, Rocco.
Unlike many lowland churches, marriage remains a big part of Susan’s ministry – she conducts around 30 every year – a combination of local people and visitors and describes them as ‘great fun’.
“It is something we can do for couples, to help them to meet the God who longs to bless not only their wedding day, but the whole of their lives. It also helps the community in a very practical way by bringing in visitors and business.”
The manse family has at times, been swelled by what she described as a small number of ‘borrowed’ children who became a temporary part of the family and Susan is delighted that some will join them on the opening day of the General Assembly.
Her theme of ‘Walking with’ is going to be at the heart of all she does during her year of office as the Church’s ambassador.
“We are sometimes too busy doing things rather than just being. I like getting alongside people. You can’t be a top-down person when you are just five feet tall!”
Listening to people’s stories and letting them just talk with you – that is one of the most valuable things you can do.”
In her spare time, Susan enjoys walking her Labrador Finn (‘named after the saint Finnbar who brought Christianity to the Dornoch Firth) and “attempts” to play golf at Royal Dornoch “one of the five best courses in the world.” She played badminton and hockey when she was younger and used to swim a mile at the start of each day. She was only two grades short of her black belt in Tae Kwon Do when a knee injury halted her ascent.
Her service to the central church has included time as vice- convener of the Ecumenical Relations Committee and she is currently Vice-Convener of the World Mission Council, as well as serving as a Chaplain in Ordinary to the Queen.
Her year will see presbytery visits to Annandale and Eskdale, Hamilton, Kirkcaldy and England. Overseas visits to India and Pakistan and Uruguay and Argentina – through the Church’s connections with the Waldensian Church in Italy – have also been pencilled in. The Rev Mary Stobo and the Rev Jim Stewart will serve as her chaplains, offering their support during the year.
Her Moderatorial outfit promises to have a touch of lace, but is being kept under wraps until the Assembly opens on May 19.
The Very Rev Dr Alan McDonald, Moderator in 2006, is among those helping out by taking services once a month during Susan’s absence – although it is plain she already misses her community and congregation (she preached her last service at the beginning of March). At our meeting, she wears a beautiful Tain silver brooch, one of the gifts from the Dornoch congregation in February to mark the 20th anniversary of her ministry there.
Reflecting on what parish ministry has meant to her, she simply says: “It is the privilege of leading worship among people who let you in on all the highs and lows of their lives – the beautiful and the messy moments.”
Her theme of ‘Walking with’ is going to be at the heart of all she does during her year of o. ce as the Church’s ambassador.
Moderator-Designate, the Rev Susan Brown
photo: Derek Fett Photography
Being visible and a huge part of the local community – Dornoch Cathedral lies at the very heart of the Highland town – Susan is also passionate about creative worship and uses the church year to help people engage with the faith.
This article appears in the May 2018 Issue of Life and Work
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