Knox church visit led Jeanette down a different path to ministry

Becoming the Church of Scotland's newest minister was not something Rev Jeanette Wilson would have even thought possible until relatively recently.

While studying for her own personal interest at Highland Theological College (HTC), part of the University of the Highlands and Islands, people would ask what she planned to do with her degree and was she studying for ministry in the Church of Scotland.

In a foretaste of what was to come with this week's ordination service at St Andrew's Church in Deans in Livingston, Miss Wilson was even included in an email sent to all HTC's Church of Scotland ministry candidates.

"I wasn't even part of the Church of Scotland, I was a Baptist" she pointed out.

Brought up in the harbour town of Eyemouth in Berwickshire she has been actively involved with the church since her teens.

In the 1990s, after someone first suggested a future in ministry, she joined rural evangelism charity Faith Mission and was involved in mission work in Ireland before deciding it was time to return to Scotland and beginning a career in the care sector.

After being made redundant from her residential home post when it closed, Miss Wilson eventually applied to study for a degree in theology from HTC, where she found that enquiries about her future plans and misdirected emails were not the only things pointing her to a potential future with the Church of Scotland.

Towards the end of her degree, she was among a group of Baptist women visiting St Mary's Church in Haddington as they had been studying the Reformation and the legacy of John Knox, who has long been associated with St Mary's.

Miss Wilson recalled: "I was standing in the middle of the church and I really felt God say: ‘What would you say if I decided to call you to the Church of Scotland?'"

This was followed by a similar experience during a 50th birthday trip to London which, as a self-confessed "political geek", included a trip to the Houses of Parliament.

"I was standing in the House of Commons and I can hear it still – God said: ‘I want you to cross from one side to the other in the sense of moving from one party to another,'" recalled Miss Wilson.

"So, when I came home I made an appointment with my pastor and said ‘I'm really sorry, but I think that God is calling me to Church of Scotland ministry' and resigned my membership.

"Basically, I then walked across the road and made an appointment with the Church of Scotland minister and told him: ‘I think God is calling me to be a Church of Scotland minister, can I become a member of your church?'

"Once he picked his jaw off the floor, he went: ‘Yes.'

"So, I joined and I became a member."

A broader view of faith

After a couple of years, by which time she had become an elder, Miss Wilson started the discernment process which culminated in this week's ordination service.

"Because of my time in Faith Mission, it wasn't a sudden thing," she said of her move from Baptism to the Church of Scotland.

"There was a slow realisation that the Baptist view wasn't the only view and me really trying to figure out where my theological red lines were.

"It basically came down to if something agreed with the Apostles' Creed, I'm all for it and if it doesn't agree with the Creed, I will leave it up to people's interpretations.

"I took a broader view of what being a Christian was about.

"It wasn't about filling in a theological statement or having to do a test, it was about believing that Jesus was the son of God, died and rose again."

Miss Wilson did placements at the small rural church of Chirnside, between Eyemouth and Duns, North Berwick Abbey Church and Greenlaw Church in Duns with former Moderator of the General Assembly, Very Rev Dr Susan Brown.

She went on to complete her probationary period at Livingston Old Parish Church, where she was ordained as assistant minister into the Presbytery of Edinburgh and West Lothian.

Livingston Old, which is split between two buildings, the 18th century Livingston Village Kirk and more recent Deans building in the former mining village, which is now part ofLivingston New Town.

The church is at the heart of the local community, which reflects Miss Wilson's own approach to ministry.

"On Wednesday we have a soup lunch, we have a second-hand clothes shop and I run a quiet space where people can come into the church and pray or come and chat to me if they wish," she explained.

"We do a lot of work in the community.

"People always say to me: ‘Where do you want to go?'

"But it's not so much where as who.

"I really feel called to mission and being involved in that, so a church that is open to working in the community.

"I'm very casual and laid back and a people person, so I'm looking for a church that appreciates those gifts."

Miss Wilson's ordination and induction ceremony, which was well attended by friends and family as well as members of the congregation at Livingston and the other churches where she has served, was led by Edinburgh and West Lothian Presbytery Moderator Rev Sandy Forsyth, along with Presbytery Depute Clerk Rev Daniel Carmichael.

The sermon was given by Rev Alexander McAspurren, who will become minister at near neighbour Bathgate Parish Church in May, while Livingston Old minister Rev Nelu Balaj gave the concluding prayer.