‘Church was my life from the very beginning’

Lynne McNeil meets the Moderator-Designate, the Rev Rosie Frew and hears how a call to ministry was shaped by a life rooted in the Church of Scotland.

DELIVERING copies of Life and Work as a child played a part in forming the faith of the Moderator-Designate to the 2025 General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.

For the Rev Rosie Frew and her family used to deliver the magazine alongside the parish newsletter as she was growing up in Clarkston, Glasgow.

“My mum (who was also a Brown Owl) delivered Life and Work and I well remember that we as a family group would deliver the magazine. The church used to put its monthly newsletter inside Life and Work.”

This early mission outreach involving the Bone family – mum Mamie (who became an elder), brother Donald and sister Suzanne – clearly helped shape the faith of the young Rosie. Her dad Ramsay was supportive, but not particularly interested in faith.

Rosie recalls the enjoyment of visiting and meeting people and being invited in for tea and cakes.

“It was a wonderful way of getting to meet people. You look back now and they were so friendly.”

“ We were part of something where so many young people from different denominations came together, but we never talked about denomination – we were Christians.

Until the age of 14, Rosie (the eldest of three children) grew up in Clarkston, Glasgow and worked her way through Sunday School and was in Bible Class at Giffnock South Parish Church until a change of job for her dad, meant a move to Linlithgow in West Lothian.

“The church was my life. Along with junior choir, my social life was based in the church. I was in the Brownies and Guides, Sunday School and Bible Class, the Young Worshippers’ League and out delivering Life and Work magazines.

“Church was my life from the very beginning.

“Just as we were leaving Glasgow, I read an article in the Glasgow Herald about the licensing of the first married couple in ministry. Until that time I did not know that a woman could be a minister. All the ministers I had known were older men. “Reading that article was an epiphany.” She added: “I cut out that article and I kept it for some time. I can vividly remember the picture. That really was the article that set me on this path to ministry.”

With the move to West Lothian, worship moved to Linlithgow: St Michael’s, where the Very Rev Dr David Steel was minister. The former Moderator announced his retirement a short time after the family became part of the congregation.

Rosie settled into St Michael’s, joining the Youth Fellowship and becoming a Sunday School teacher, and throughout this time the feeling of a call to ministry was growing.

She was also influenced by a succession of young probationer ministers who served at St Michael’s. The first was Alistair Bennett – who served at Bowden and Melrose before Rosie was called to the Borders parish in 2017.

“The most influential was Andy Campbell, Alistair’s successor.

“He led me as a young person in ministry with his enthusiasm and his warmth and he became a great friend to all of us who were in the youth fellowship. It was a very different experience of church.”

At the age of 17, although Rosie felt a call, she astutely recognised divinity would not be her first degree.

“As a 17-year-old, I wasn’t ready to say that I was feeling called to ministry. I wasn’t brave enough! I had done my homework. I knew that I needed to have a first degree.

“I went for a general arts degree in maths and religious studies with a view to going into teaching as a back-up. I knew that was giving me the foundation to go on and do divinity.”

Rosie studied at Edinburgh but before she went she was encouraged to spend the summer, at the suggestion of the Rev Andy Campbell, at the Compass Christian Centre at Glenshee, a summer she described as a ‘transformational’, not least because it was there she met her husband Dave and made many lifelong friends.

“We were part of something where so many young people from different denominations came together, but we never talked about denomination – we were Christians. We were Christians who had a passion for the outdoors and a passion for ski-ing and who wanted to share what we loved with others.”

After completing her degree, Rosie took a gap year and worked as a cook at the Centre.

“When I told my director of studies that I was taking a year out to do this, he shouted at me and said: ‘You are throwing your education away’.”

But the irresistible call to ministry would not go away.

“While at Glenshee I went to selection school. I went to selection school not even thinking I would not get through – I was just 21, a child, but the call was incredibly strong and I could not see what else God could be calling me to do.”

Rosie was accepted as a candidate and found herself back at Edinburgh University, this time studying divinity between 1983 and 1986. Rosie and Dave married at the end of her first year. He was working for Fife Council so placements were served in Fife at Abbotshall and Viewforth in Kirkcaldy. She was then licensed by the presbytery of West Lothian.

After probation at Markinch Parish Church she served as locum for six months at Glenrothes: St Columba’s before in 1988 she was called to her first charge of Largo and Newburn linked with Largo: St David’s. Rosie served there for 17 years.

“I obviously loved my time in Largo. I have such happy memories of the people and things we did and how I grew as a minister, alongside some very supportive people. As you look back you recognise that.

From there Rosie, Dave and their family – son Pete and daughter Bex – moved west along the Fife coast to Kirkcaldy, after she was called to Kirkcaldy: Abbotshall, where she served for a dozen years, also serving as Clerk to Kirkcaldy Presbytery for ten years.

“During my time in Kirkcaldy I became Presbytery Clerk which I did for ten of the 12 years I was there.

“I loved parish ministry. I loved being a Presbytery Clerk and the Presbytery became my extended parish. They were supporting new ideas and trying different things.” School chaplaincy was key during this time in Kirkcaldy and Rosie speaks affectionately of these ties and teamwork with her neighbouring ministers. She also recalls trauma pastoral work around the unexpected death of a child.

“It was an awful, awful time but you look back and you see the best of school chaplaincy and how a minister and a headteacher worked together along with a child psychologist, helping a family and a school begin to cope.”

Throughout this time Rosie also served enthusiastically within the structures of the central church on the Board of Education, the Board of Ministry, Pension Trustees, the Mission and Evangelism Resources Committee and the Board of National Mission Executive.

In 2005 when the central church was restructured, she became Vice-Convener of the Mission and Discipleship Council.

In 2015, with a grown-up family and her husband taking early retirement, her mind turned towards a fresh challenge, and an irresistible call followed to serve at Bowden and Melrose.

“We had been there before, briefly, walking St Cuthbert’s Way which starts in Melrose and heads over the Eildon Hills to Bowden.”

“ I loved parish ministry. I loved being a Presbytery Clerk and the Presbytery became my extended parish. They were supporting new ideas and trying different things.

Indeed pilgrimage has become part of her ministry in the Borders with the historic church in the village of Bowden of particular interest to pilgrims.

Within a short time her skills were identified and she was asked to take on the task of local presbytery planning and it was through this work that she was asked to become involved in the work of the Ministries Council, which she served as Convener from 2019, becoming Convener of the Faith Nurture Forum from 2020 until 2023.

Determined to take some time away from the central church and focus on parish life, the nomination to serve as Moderator came as a surprise.

“It is really humbling that people can see in you the person to be Moderator, representing the Church in this way.”

After the initial feeling of disbelief at her nomination, she says she has been ‘overwhelmed’ by messages of support and kindness and says she feels ‘that mix of excitement and terror, but knowing that this is the next thing that God has called you to.’

She plans to take Paul’s Prayer for the Ephesians (chapter 3) as her theme for the year, proclaiming how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ.

Her chaplains for the year will be the Rev Dr Karen Campbell, minister at Edinburgh: Marchmont St Giles’ and the Rev Norman Smith, clerk to the Presbytery of Lothian and Borders.

Presbytery visits have been pencilled in for Perth and Cleir Eilean I (Highland and Hebrides).

She has been gifted the Moderatorial robes of the former Principal Clerk, the Very Rev Dr Finlay Macdonald (a member of the Melrose congregation), who served as Moderator in 2002 and says he was delighted to hand the robes to her.

On the question of the Moderatorial outfit, Rosie is having a suit made, but there will be no lace.

She promises that her family will keep her feet firmly on the ground.

“My kids will keep me humble. My daughter Bex, a civil servant, helps me with Messy Church, while my son Pete is a firefighter in Edinburgh. They are very proud.”

Whilst her hope for the year is to share the love of Christ, she also hopes to encourage and thank the quiet and often unsung group of volunteers which sustain the life of the Church of Scotland.

“I hope it can be a year where I am learning more about the Church but also have the chance to be encouraging, particularly with CrossReach and the presbyteries and the places where people don’t get much attention. It is about the encouragement of the whole Church.

“My role is to be able to get to them and bring them greetings from the General Assembly and words of encouragement that they are valued and loved.” ¤