This past Monday the nominating committee selected the Rev. William Hewitt, minister of Westburn Church, Greenock, as the Moderator Designate for the next General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.
Rev. Hewitt is a career pastor who was ordained in 1977 and served at Elderslie Kirk for sixteen years before his present call. His resume is extensive with a lot of community involvement and chaplaincy as well as service to the wider church including serving as convener of presbytery and general assembly committees. He has served as a Presbytery Moderator twice, first for Greenock Presbytery, and then as the first Moderator of the Greenock and Paisley Presbytery.
This Moderator selection is also distinctive not just for the individual selected, but for other connections in the Web 2.0 world. Rev. Hewitt is a friend and colleague of Liz who writes the blog journalling. Check out her brief comments on his selection.
But this year there is also some interesting discussion about the process:
Louis, who served on the selection committee but did not make the final meeting because of illness, asks “Does the Church of Scotland select the Moderator of its General Assembly fairly?” While he considers Rev. Hewitt a worthy selection, he notes that the process favors those who have served on General Assembly committees and have received the wider visibility. He suggests the process needs to be changed:
in congregational ministry for 30-40 years, who has proved to be an
excellent pastor, who has faithfully preached God’s Word, who has
discipled many believers to spiritual maturity, who bears the scars of
long service and who has come through the lean years as well as the
fat? What about such a minister? Such a minister may not have
written books or articles or letters, may not have much of a record of
service in the central committees and councils of the Kirk, and as a
consequence, will not be sufficiently well-known to be nominated at
meetings of the Committee to Nominate the Moderator. Our system needs
to be changed to give such ministers a better chance. Their worth
would be inestimable in the pastoral visitation that is the most
important task of the Moderator once the General Assembly is done and
dusted.
Another interesting bit of commentary come from scotsman.com in their story headlined “Kirk stalwarts passed over for Moderator.” The article is very brief and really does not develop this critique or add anything new, but the headline is interesting.
So, congratulations and best wishes to Rev. Hewitt and we look forward to hearing from you on the Moderators blog. (And please consider doing the blog with RSS feed and comments.)