My church

Dot Getliffe DCS reflects on the impact of the Church of Scotland on her life. 

“DON’T want to do it!” said the child, hiding under the front pew of a Glasgow east end church in the 1960s.

That was me responding to my minister Dad in Carntyne St Michael’s Church of Scotland. What I didn’t want to do, was hand over the posy of flowers to the beckoning parents of a newly christened baby!

I was SO shy- unlike the person I am today. Nowadays there seem to be fewer parents choosing to have their babies christened or baptised at all! We are definitely no longer Christian Scotland.

I remember childhood hymns like.. Far round the world and Let us with a gladsome mind, found in CH2 or CH3, and accompanied by an organist. Now, I love to worship with CH4 on a screen as well as sing choruses by composers Stuart Townend or Andrew Peterson. Has ‘the church shaped my life’? Unforgettably!

Our family moved to Newton Stewart when I was 10, and I remember hating Sundays, especially Communion Sunday when I was not allowed to go to the (what felt like) top secret ceremony that only adults could go to. Church could be a place of alienation and always sitting on an uncomfortable wooden pew. Glad to say it’s mostly movable chairs today.

When I left home at 18, church became more important as I bowed my knee to the Living Lord Jesus in a Glasgow city centre church just across from my drama school. Church became a place to spy on good looking guys over the other side of the balcony!

“ Church could be a place of alienation and always sitting on an uncomfortable wooden pew. Glad to say it’s mostly movable chairs today."

The hearing of the Word through the Scriptures really became life changing as I got to grips with becoming a disciple. I saw, through God’s Word, the rootedness of God’s ancient people in exile; seeing the connections with their walk with God and mine. And the Psalms, allowing fresh expressions of every emotion under the sun. The pastoring by this Church of Scotland minister was also very caring.

I knew I belonged to a welcoming, mainly student clientele from around the world, learning together to pray big prayers and listen, applying a part of a sermon to my everyday pickles and problems.

A big move in the 1980s came when I attended a smaller church in the seaside town of Stonehaven. The Church of Scotland by then, had become a Sunday habit - that familiar ‘hymn/prayer sandwich’ cushion where I felt comfortable in the liturgy and culture of people who,

over coffee in the hall, spoke about anything but the sermon! The second biggest decision of my life (after embracing Jesus as my personal Saviour) came as I met my future husband in that seaside church. We got to know each other in the Evening Worship band, and were married in Penninghame St John’s Church Newton Stewart, by the late Eric Alexander. Church life shaped me yet again!

Our children were aged 10 and 8 when I attended an Enquirers’ Conference, realising I was called to the Diaconate. Throughout my training in Lanarkshire, I began to experiment with new formats such as dance in worship, which I believe is still going strong in that East Kilbride church. I also became convinced that men and women leading worship together, sharing their spiritual gifts, was the way ahead, a change still developing in my current Highland Presbytery. ¤