By Bill Heaney
Helensburgh Parish Church will gain a new minister today (Tuesday) with the induction of the Rev Susan Campbell MacGregor.
Ms MacGregor served at Edinburgh’s Greyfriars Kirk as a probationer minister, but her induction marks the start of a new chapter as a Minister of Word and Sacrament with the Church of Scotland in the Colquhoun Square church.
Ms MacGregor, pictured right, studied theology at the University of St Andrews after leaving school, but went on to a career in higher education leadership and management before she started considering studying for ministry.
“I was in my most senior position in my education career, looking after a diverse group of staff and students, finding that I was dealing with people who were facing issues in life. Many had questions about where they were going, and faced all the issues of restructuring organisations and all the stresses and strains that involved,” she explained.
“My approach to leadership was quite pastoral, but there is a limit to what you can do for people if you are the manager or leader: you are not their counsellor or confidante.
“I suppose I got to the point where I couldn’t really be the sort of leader I wanted to be, and then the questioning began.”
She returned to Scotland after 20 years working in England and Wales to study towards the ministry at New College in Edinburgh, but also took on a three-year contract in a senior management position with the University of Edinburgh with the result that she was at one point both a student and staff member.
“It was very interesting to see the boot on the other foot because I had worked in a very student focussed area,” she said.
“To be a student again in the modern era was eye-opening when you see it from the other side.”
An intense and rich experience
Placements at St David’s Broomhouse, Wardie Parish Church and Priestfield Church followed before she began her probationary period at Greyfriars, and Sue was remotely supervised following the retiral of Dr Frazer.
“It has been quite an intense experience, but also rich and busy because of that autonomy and also because of the location,” Ms MacGregor explained.
“We worked out that we have nearly two million visitors to the Kirkyard and around 100,000 into the Kirk each year. There is a particular ministry with visitors and pilgrims, but there are also people who live in the parish.
“It is that diversity and the profile of the event listings and the opportunities that we have for income generation that keeps the church so alive. Some of our events are commercial, but we have regular free Thursday lunchtime concerts, which are part of our mission to the arts, enabling people to experience really high-quality artistes and giving opportunities for emerging performers to experience this lovely space in the same way as the musicians in the great orchestras who come here.
“There is a great comment from someone who said: ‘I came for the music and stayed for the prayers.’ People come into the space, they experience that spiritual ambiance and they can sit and reflect and something gets absorbed. People don’t have to be there on Sunday to experience something of God in that place.”
‘I came for the music and stayed for the prayers.’
What a fabulous comment.