Our presbyteries

Thomas Baldwin finds a team ready to ‘make a difference’ in the Presbytery of Forth Valley and Clydesdale.

THE Presbytery of Forth Valley and Clydesdale was initially formed from the merger of Hamilton and Lanark, with Falkirk joining a few months later (except the Cumbernauld churches, which chose to join the Presbytery of Glasgow).

“The thing about Falkirk is it’s right in the middle, so we could have gone anywhere – up to Perth, at one point we were talking about Glasgow, or we could have gone Edinburgh’s way,” says the Rev Robert Allan, the presbytery’s interim clerk and minister of Falkirk: Trinity Church. “But we took advice from the Principal Clerk to the General Assembly at the time, and it was felt that without Falkirk this would have been quite a small presbytery.”

The resulting organisation is not the largest of the new presbyteries, but still covers a significant area: everything between Glasgow and West Lothian, extending north to just short of Stirling, and south into the rural parts of Lanarkshire, where the central belt starts to give way to the farmland of the Borders.

It is an area with no cities but many good-sized towns, including Falkirk, Hamilton, Motherwell, Airdrie, Coatbridge and Wishaw. It is also, presbytery staff suggest, one of the economically worseoff presbyteries, home to areas that have suffered badly from the decline of industry over the past 50 years.

Notably, the Ravenscraig steelworks which closed in 1992 was within the old Hamilton Presbytery, while in the present day Grangemouth oil refinery faces an uncertain future.

The presbytery organisation has undergone an uncertain few years, and currently finds itself without a clerk after the retiral of the previous postholder in May. Robert is currently filling in for one day a week, along with David Watt, an elder from Airdrie, who is serving as assistant clerk.

The presbytery has also this year completed a reorganisation of its structure following the recommendations of a governance review, and was the last to submit its Presbytery Mission Plan when it was approved this year – “To much jubilation,” says Robert.

“There are a lot of unions, a lot of congregations working well together, and champing at the bit saying ‘we want to go on, we want to try new things’,” he adds.

While the search for a new clerk goes on, other paid staff have been in post for a while. Lorna Laughland is the presbytery’s education, training and development officer. “It has been good to get the plan approved,” she agrees. “There are still difficulties – there are a lot of congregations saying goodbye to their buildings, meeting to agree the basis of union, all the necessary steps that we have to get through. But the sooner we can get through that the sooner people can start concentrating their efforts on the future. I think mindsets are starting to change and there’s a kind of air of positivity starting to come through.”

Lorna’s job includes training lay people as worship leaders and funeral celebrants, with the hope that the measures will be widened so people can be authorised to take worship anywhere within their cluster, rather than just their own congregation.

“Even going into big parishes, even if they have a minister that minister’s time is going to be impacted in a lot of other ways,” she says. “So we’re hoping to get this proper team ministry where someone called to that kind of ministry in their own place can be asked to lead worship elsewhere. It’s a whole new way of doing church I think.”

Lorna’s role also includes working with those newly-qualified ministers who have been working as assistants while presbyteries have been going through the mission planning process, during which very few churches have been permitted to call. She says that the area is ‘a bit sparse’ for ministers due to the delays with its mission plan, but that the Planning and Implementation Committee are now working hard to put it into action: “I’m impressed with how quickly that’s going.”

The presbytery also has a buildings officer, Mhairi MacLeod, who as well as being a chartered building surveyor is a Church of Scotland session clerk and the sister of a minister. Employed by the General Trustees and responsible for helping congregations keep their buildings in good (and legal) condition, she says she is encouraging a ‘fabric first’ approach, and making sure the fundamentals are taken care of before getting more ambitious.

“We are being told to think big, but it’s about good stewardship and getting value for money,” Mhairi says. “The classic is asking ‘can we get solar panels’ when the roof is leaking. Once you make sure the building is in good condition, then you can look at the big stuff.”

She does emphasise, however, that both internal and external funding is available for church buildings, and urges congregations that need help with their buildings to come to her. “I’ve been here about two and a half years and I think word is starting to get round. The buildings officers are here to help, not to judge. There is money there for them and it’s my job to help them get that money.”

“Another positive, he says, is that Forth Valley and Clydesdale is the presbytery in contact with the highest number of young people.

Speaking of money, the presbytery has established a small grants fund which has given over £11,000 for new initiatives in 47 congregations over the past three years. Two churches – Hamilton St John’s and Lanark Greyfriars – are exploring digital ministry, and new worshipping communities are, Robert says, ‘starting to pop up’ around the presbytery.

Another positive, he says, is that Forth Valley and Clydesdale is the presbytery in contact with the highest number of young people, at least partly because of a lot of strong Boys’ Brigade companies.

While things might have taken longer than would have been wished to get to this point, Robert says the mood is one of wanting to make up for lost time: “We want to get up and running, we want to make a difference.” ¤