Kirk’s new moderator is ‘fired up’ to spread word

Minister will take on prestigious role in 700th year of the Declaration of Arbroath

A Tayside minister has been chosen as the next Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.

The Rev Dr Martin Fair, 55, will become the first moderator from Arbroath to serve as the Kirk’s ambassador.

Mr Fair, who was ordained and inducted into St Andrew’s Parish Church in 1992, trained at the Faculty of Divinity at Glasgow University, then had a two-year appointment with the Church of Scotland congregation in Bermuda.

Upon his return to Scotland, he fulfilled a six-month contract as associate minister at St Mary’s Church in Dundee before taking up the Arbroath post.

Mr Fair, who grew up in Thornliebank on the south side of Glasgow, said he is excited and a bit daunted about taking up his new role. Fittingly, he will serve in the 700th anniversary year of the Declaration of Arbroath.

He said his one regret is that his parents, Ena and Bill, who were born and bred in the Church, did not live long enough to see him take up the 12-month role.

He said claims the Kirk is in its “death throes are well wide of the mark” and he can see “green shoots of growth and live in hope for what is going to come”.

“I am really excited about the future of the Church and, quite frankly, if I solely focused on statistics that suggested terminal decline I would have quit the ministry years ago.

“It is at a key crossroads and we are letting go of some of what has been and embracing what is to come.

“I am looking forward to getting out and about and being alongside folk in the local church and hope to be an encouraging voice to help prepare all of us for what God has in store.

“There is a wonderful opportunity for the Church right now to rediscover its meaning and purpose”

He added: “I am totally fired up as a minister and as moderator, I want to communicate that excitement and positivity.”

When he is not engaged in ministry work, Mr Fair enjoys exploring outdoors and is a keen hill walker, mountaineer, camper, football fan and golfer.

As a teenager, he had a golf handicap of two and a favourite family story is the time he forfeited the chance of winning a club championship by walking off three holes early because he feared he would miss a cinema date with his now wife.

Golf continued to be a passion into adulthood but an accident in 2017 means his handicap of eight has slipped.

He tripped and fell in the street after jogging back to his car in Arbroath and broke his left arm, which has never properly healed.

Mr Fair said: “While I wish this had not happened to me, good things have come from it because when you are dependent on people for help you take on a different view of life.”

Mr Fair, who will take up the ambassador role next May, attended the same school as his wife Elaine.

The couple have three sons – Callum, 23, Andrew, 20, and Fraser, 18.

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This is a wonderful opportunity for the Church right now to rediscover its meaning and purpose. REV DR MARTIN FAIR

The Rev Dr Martin Fair cannot wait to get to work as the first moderator from Arbroath to serve as the Kirk’s ambassador.