From Monty Python to ministry
Thomas Baldwin reports on the appointment of the Moderator-Designate of the 2019 General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.
AN Edinburgh minister has been appointed as the Moderator-Designate of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland for 2019.
The Rev Colin Sinclair, minister of Palmerston Place Church, will take up the role of Moderator next May.
He has been minister of Palmerston Place for 22 years and also has a lifelong connection with Scripture Union, which he credits with bringing him to faith as a teenager.
He said: “I am honoured to be selected for this opportunity to represent the Church of Scotland nationally and internationally.
“It will be a pleasure to encourage church members in their faith and to see the impact of their faith in communities across our country.
“I have thoroughly enjoyed being a parish minister and despite the challenges we face I believe the Christian faith is still relevant to Scotland.
“Our message is still Good News and it still changes lives.”
Colin grew up on the south side of Glasgow, the son of ‘occasional churchgoers’.
It was as a pupil at Glasgow Academy that he first became interested in the Christian faith. To escape getting into trouble after a prefect saw him taking the wrong staircase, Colin dodged into a darkened room where a Scripture Union camp video was showing.
“I enjoyed the film, thought the activities looked great and I felt I could put up with the ‘religious stuff ’, he says.
“I did love the camp and had great fun, and I liked the leaders. But to my surprise I also enjoyed the meetings with their lively singing and straightforward message about Jesus Christ.
“I went back to camp the next year and decided then to follow Jesus Christ. So started an exciting adventure of faith that has lasted over 50 years.”
His work with Scripture Union includes spending three years working as a training officer in Zambia, during which he lived out of a car, and eight years as the director of Scripture Union Scotland. With his wife Ruth, he ran an SU camp for teenagers for 27 years, and he was the organisation’s International Chair for 14 years until November 2017.
He was called to the ministry while studying at Stirling University. After training at New College Edinburgh, his first parish was Newton-on-Ayr. He left there to take up the SU Scotland director job, where he stayed until he was called to Palmerston Place, where he had earlier been an assistant minister, in 1996.