Charity boss named as the next Church of Scotland moderator
- Published
Reverend Sally Foster-Fulton will become the Kirk's ambassador for 12 months from next May
The Church of Scotland has named its next moderator of the General Assembly.
The Reverend Sally Foster-Fulton, 58, who lives in Glasgow, has led poverty relief charity Christian Aid in Scotland since 2016.
She will take a year's sabbatical to become the Kirk's ambassador at home and abroad for 12 months from next May.
The Church of Scotland minister will chair the annual General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, which is held for a week in Edinburgh every year.
The moderator designate said she was looking forward to meeting and encouraging people involved in church work during difficult times.
Mrs Foster-Fulton said: "I'm excited about what the year will bring. I genuinely love and am inspired by the Church of Scotland and its people.
"Over the past years of the pandemic in the face of a global climate emergency and now a cost-of-living crisis, people across the Church have been stepping up and doing their very best to make an extraordinary impact in communities, locally, across our nation and in the world."
Born and raised in South Carolina in the USA, Mrs Foster-Fulton has been a Church of Scotland minister for more than 20 years and has served in several parishes as well as hospitals as a chaplain.
She convened the Church of Scotland's former Church and Society Council from 2012-2016 and helped advance work for human rights, climate justice and support for people living in poverty in Scotland and overseas.
All in this together
The minister campaigned on behalf of detainees at Dungavel House immigration removal centre near Strathaven in South Lanarkshire.
She also led the Church's work with different religions and other Christian denominations to create support networks for asylum seekers and refugees.
Mrs Foster-Fulton said: "What church congregations do locally in their communities is critical. It is what gives the Church's voice validity when we speak truth to power.
"Sometimes we talk about local and international work as if it is an either or, but if there is one thing my work with the Church of Scotland, Christian Aid, this recent pandemic and the climate crisis has affirmed, is that we are all in this together.
"There is no separation between what we do for people in our global neighbourhood and what we do here at home.
"There is no them and us, there is just us and we have all got to look after one another."
The current moderator of the General Assembly is the Right Rev Dr Iain Greenshields.