My church

Alan Blair, an elder at Jersey: St Columba’s, reflects on his faith journey – and new growth. 

“ I have been an elder now for nearly three years and my wife helps out with the Sunday school as well as arranging regular church walks and helping with the organisation of our annual Christmas fayre.

MY early involvement with St Columba’s Jersey was as a result of two events – one very sad and the other very happy.

When my mother, who was from Glasgow, died in 1992, the Rev Robert Nicol, a most kind and thoughtful man, took the funeral service. He provided great pastoral support afterwards. That year I also got engaged to Samantha and we felt that St Columba’s would be the church where we wanted to get married – and so we did in September 1993.

I remember applying for a late licence with the Registrar in Jersey to get married after 2pm – the rules on when and where you could get married were much more restricted in those days. In the official registrar’s list of permitted places to get married in the island – St Columba’s is merely referred to as the “Scotch Kirk”. Perhaps the registrar, when the Church was founded back in the 1850s, had been sampling some of Scotland’s great export to the world.

We have been regular worshippers over the years, and our daughters were both baptised there. I have been an elder now for nearly three years and my wife helps out with the Sunday school as well as arranging regular church walks and helping with the organisation of our annual Christmas fayre.

During the last 35 years there have been seven ministers in the post and the congregation was able to call a minister last year and we are delighted to have welcomed the Rev Carolann Birnie to be our new minister in October 2023.

It was during the period of vacancy which lasted for 28 months that I was asked to join the worship team. Given our remote location from other Presbyterian churches getting people to preach can be difficult. It was during the vacancy that I was asked to conduct several services along with great support from other members of the congregation. Although quite mentally taxing and time consuming, I found this task to be a most rewarding and enjoyable thing to be part of.

I believe my faith has been enhanced by this extra effort needed to present a message based on God’s word to our congregation.

We have a loyal following at St Columba’s and we now feel that we have come through the effects that the Covid-19 pandemic brought to churches everywhere when we were unable to physically come together.

Zoom and Teams have a place in the world but there is no substitute for us coming together to worship. Our church is growing again and it has been an honour to have been able to play a small part in its history over the last 31 years.