Yesterday, February 5, was a busy day for Moderator selections and I will begin with the first news we got, that being from the Free Church of Scotland (Continuing).

The Free Church (Continuing) announced that the Rev. William Macleod, pastor of the Knightswood Church, Glasgow, was selected as the Moderator-Designate for their 2019 General Assembly in May.

Mr Macleod is one of the original members of the Free Church of Scotland (Continuing) when it divided from the Free Church of Scotland in 2000. At that time he was serving as the pastor at Portree on the Isle of Skye. He began his pastoral service when he was ordained and inducted at the Patrick Free Church in 1976, and translated to Portree in 1993. He moved to his current pulpit at Knightswood, at that time known as Thornwood FCC, in 2006.

He has provided significant service to the Free Church (Continuing) including having previously served as GA Moderator in 2005. He also served as the editor of the Free Church Witness magazine from 2000 to 2017, and as Principal of the Free Church Seminary from 2003 to 2014 where he still serves as a lecturer in Systematic Theology.

He began his college studies at Aberdeen University where he earned a BSc in 1972. (On a personal note I was interested to see on his church bio that his studies included geology.) He began his pastoral training at the Free Church College in Edinburgh (now Edinburgh Theological Seminary) earning a diploma in theology in 1975. He continued his theological training, specifically in Systematic Theology, at Westminster Theological Seminary (Pennsylvania, US) being awarded a ThM from there in 1976.

William and his wife have three adult children and four grandchildren. His son Murdo is a filmmaker and directed the highly-acclaimed documentary Knox, about the reformer John Knox. The working title was “Give Me Scotland” and there is some good background to the film from Head Heart Hand that features Murdo. Their son Alasdair is the pastor of Knock and Point Free Church (Continuing) on Lewis. Their daughter Christina is married to Ian and they have two young children.

As I mentioned at the beginning, Mr Macleod was part of the original group when the Free Church of Scotland (Continuing) divided from the Free Church of Scotland in 2000. He wrote the forward to John W. Kiddie’s account of that and the events leading up to it, A Divided Church. Permit me to close with a few of his words from that Forward.

I have been asked whether I regretted the stand I made and the actions in which I was involved. Looking back, with the wisdom of hindsight, would I follow the same course again? Without a shadow of a doubt I would. True, there were times when I and others could have shown more humility along with firmness when more gracious words could have been used, but wrongs had to be opposed.

At the end of the day what matters is not what people think of us, our success or our popularity but rather doing what is right in the eyes of the Lord, dispite the cost. Soon we will all have to stand before the Judgement Seat. The things that are important to many people today will mean little then. Our concern must be to hear the Lord say to us: “Well done, good and faithful servant” (Matthew 25:23).

(From A Divided Church: An account of the division in the Free Church of Scotland in 2000, p. 7-8)

We wish Rev William Macleod well as he moderates the upcoming General Assembly set to begin on May 20, 2019, and our prayers are with him. For more biographical details you can check out his church’s web page, the Free Church (Continuing) minister page, as well as the details in the official announcement. You can listen to his preaching on sermonaudio.com.