THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND - Priestfield Parish Church

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due to various factors - sometimes there are insuffi cient
church folk on the island to have a service - I have been
over in January and had a congregation of 3. Sometimes it
is just diffi cult to fi nd anyone to go over, and at other times
the ferry gets disrupted by the weather. Two of the elders
have undergone basic training in leading worship and
they will readily conduct worship if no one else is available.
Indeed they sometimes have more than one service in the
winter months if there is suffi cient demand.
Provision is made in the basis for weekly worship between
Easter and the end of September. This is normally provided
by visiting preachers - ministers (quite a few who have
retired), readers and lay people, who enjoy a holiday in the
manse in exchange for the Sunday service (they are asked
to make a small contribution towards the cost of heat and
light etc). This system seems to work quite well. There are
the regulars who like to return every year, and others who
fi nd that once is enough! It is usually easy enough to fi ll up
the summer Sundays. It is Sundays at the beginning and
the end of the season that always prove more diffi cult. It is
a system which seems to be advantageous to all parties -
the visitors enjoy a cheap holiday while the congregation
doesn’t have to worry about paying pulpit supply and
travelling expenses, which they simply could not aff ord.
Attendance at worship varies a great deal. They depend
very much on visitors and holidaymakers in the summer to
boost the congregation (which only consists of 15 members
and a small number of adherents). Apart from my contact
with the primary school there is no other children’s work
associated with the Church. The Kirk Session consists of
three elders and there are two other Board Members.
Average attendance is between 6-10 in the winter and
12 - 24 in the summer, although there are exceptions
such as Easter when numbers can reach as high as 65. We
celebrated the centenary of the church building last year
when we enjoyed two very well attended services on the
Centenary Week-end. There is no other active church on
the island. The Free Church is eff ectively closed and there
SPECIAL COMMISSION ANENT THE THIRD ARTICLE
are very few Free Kirk folk left. I am delighted to say that
one of them has even been joining with us for worship. The
Parish Church is therefore the only remaining source of
Christian work, witness and worship on the island. I feel it is
vital to do all we can to maintain that work and encourage
the Lord’s people in what is a far from easy situation.
Glasgow: Gorbals
Inner city, Priority Area parish to the immediate south of
Glasgow city centre. Bounded by industrial estates to the
east and west, by the M74 extension to the south and the
River Clyde to the north.
Population of parish: 9,000 (rising to 15,000 when
regeneration master plan is complete).
Membership of Congregation: 97
Presbytery plan shows Parish Minister and one other post,
currently fi lled by Associate Minister.
Worship on Sundays at 11 am. Midweek service suspended
during transition to new building.
The Minister, the Rev Ian Galloway writes:
I understand the fi nancial pressures being experienced by
those congregations who are the net fi nancial givers – and
appreciate that to give beyond the bounds of the parish
substantially is costly in terms of what local mission can
be pursued. However I also consider that supporting local
mission in other, poorer, places is a high calling worthy of
our fi nancially strongest congregations. The return on such
investment will sometimes be hard to determine, though I
know that within Priority Areas a range of examples can
be given that enable measurement in both fi nancial and
human terms.
Of course Gorbals is the place I know best, and here we can
point to Bridging the Gap – 11 years on with a budget of
£200k and making a measured and evaluated diff erence