MODERATOR-DESIGNATE ANNOUNCED

The Head of Christian Aid Scotland has been named as the Moderator-Designate of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland for 2023.

The Rev Sally Foster-Fulton said she was looking forward to meeting and encouraging people involved in church work at local, national and international level at a time of unprecedented challenge and opportunity.

She said: “I’m excited about what the year will bring. I genuinely love and am inspired by the Church of Scotland and its people. Over the past years of the pandemic in the face of a global climate emergency and now a cost-of-living crisis, people across the Church have been stepping up and doing their very best to make an extraordinary impact in communities, locally, across our nation and in the world.”

Born and raised in South Carolina in the USA, Mrs Foster-Fulton has been a Church of Scotland minister for more than 20 years, serving in Camelon Irving Parish Church in Falkirk and as associate minister in Dunblane Cathedral. She convened the Church and Society Council from 2012-16.

She also had a spell, with husband the Rev Stuart Fulton, as co-pastors at a Presbyterian Church (USA) congregation in South Carolina.

The couple now live in Glasgow, where Stuart serves the parish of Newlands South Church. They have two adult daughters, Alex and Gracie, and recently became grandparents - an event which Mrs Foster-Fulton said has ‘shifted her perspective and given new meaning’ to her commitment to try and make the world a better place.