| | | No new minister for St. Mungo's - 26 April |
Presbytery Fail to Sustain New Minister Call
The
congregation's expectations of a sustained call for Jonathan Humphrey,
their choice of new minister for St. Mungo's, were dashed at the
Presbytery meeting on Thursday 25th April, when counter motions
succeeded and the call was not sustained.
A large section of the congregation attended the meeting to hear the proceedings, and
many confused and sad faces were evident after the meeting.
The
ballot of members after the Rev Dr.Jonathan Humphrey preached his
service as Sole Nominee on Sunday 3rd February was an overwhelming vote
to select Jonathan to be our next minister, and those signing The Call
reflected a similar result. However this alone was not enough to enable
Presbytery to sustain the Call.
 The
suitability of the current manse, over which a Presbytery instruction
to sell and purchase a property more appropriate has been outstanding
for almost 5 years was raised by a selection of speakers at the
Presbytery meeting. Ian Dickson, treasurer for our church, speaking for
St. Mungo's, focused on the potentially unsustainable additional
financial cost to the congregation in the current property market to
sell and
buy a new property.
Compliance with the instruction
to upgrade the property, prior to putting up for sale has been
addressed. Internal works, improved heating insulation, and external
decoration having been completed, as reported in previous issues of
this Newsletter. It was
reported that previous attempts to sell the manse had failed to complete a sale. Gordon
MacDonald,
our property convener, added that the property will appear for sale in
the forthcoming edition of the ESPC paper, with a 'For Sale' sign
appearing on the house soon. However this action has been suspended
while the Church of Scotland Trustees review the situation with their
results being brought to the next Presbytery meeting in June
While
the associated financial concerns are indeed very real, they have
effectively overridden the congregations desire to see Jonathan begin
his ministry and grow St. Mungo's into a thriving church in our
community. The members of St. Mungo's in casting their vote recognised
that his style of ministry would build on the recent initiatives you
see reported regularly in the Mungo Messenger, most of which are driven
by enthusiastic members of our congregation who see the need to move to
a style with activities that will attract people to worship God, learn
about the love of Jesus, and be attracted to join His church.
The
current position is that we are back to a vacancy situation, with it
being unlikely that Presbytery will authorise any future Call of a
minister to fill the vacancy until the issues surrounding the manse
property and the associated financial concerns are resolved.
The
Rev Andrew Don has committed himself to lead our services for the
immediate future as our locum minister, offering pastoral support to
the members, for which we are extremely grateful.
Please pray for God to guide those who decide the future of St. Mungo's ministry and that they choose to follow His guidance.
We will keep you updated with future news, as it unfolds. | |
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