RUTH Davidson has spoken of her struggle to reconcile her faith and her sexuality in a deeply personal interview with a former Church of Scotland moderator.

The Scottish Conservative leader also questioned the Kirk's role in nurturing and supporting her faith when she was growing up.

Ms Davidson, a regular churchgoer, was taking part in a new Church of Scotland initiative designed to reach out to people beyond its existing - but dwindling - congregations.

Well known Scots, also including Belle and Sebastian musician Stuart Murdoch, will discuss their faith in a series of interviews filmed on a pair of old church pews.

The pews will be carried to famous locations around Scotland, from the new Kelpies statue overlooking the M9 to Glencoe and - possibly - the summit of Ben Nevis.

The "Take a Pew" conversations will be available to watch on the Kirk's website.

Ms Davidson, who last month announced she and partner Jen Wilson are to marry, chatted with the Very Rev Dr Lorna Hood outside the Scottish Parliament.

She said: "Lorna was pummelling me on things like how I manage to reconcile my faith and my sexuality.

"But also, how growing up in the Church, at times I felt further from my faith and from God and what the Church of Scotland was one of the things that brought me back or whether it was one of the ways in which I expressed a faith I already had."

Ms Davidson said the Kirk played a vital role in Scottish public life but agreed with Dr Hood it had to find new ways of making itself relevant, especially to young people.

She said: "There are so many rural communities where the Church is the only thing that is left.

"The library, the Post Office and the school are gone, and the Church is the only thing people have left that binds that community together.

"It has such a crucial and important role in nourishing and supporting communities around Scotland.

"I think the Church of Scotland still has a huge role to play in the public life of Scotland, civic life of Scotland, and in challenging politicians like myself.

"There are lots of things I would like to change, but I think there would be a massive absence in the public life of Scotland if the Church wasn't there."

The Kirk is seeking to broaden its appeal after seeing congregations halve over the past decade.

There are 120 vacancies for ministers around the country but only 40 people in training.

Dr Hood said: "The Church has realised that we really have to do something to reverse the situation of people leaving the Church and not getting enough people into the ministry. People of my generation will be retiring."

She added: "A huge number of people associate themselves with the Church who don't actually appear in our figures, but see the Church as a place where they can work out their own faith and service in the local community.

"The fact is if Church people opted-out of all of the community things that are happening, civic Scotland would collapse.

"If you take the Church people of our faith, and of other faiths, out of food banks, community cafes, the drop in centre, the addiction centres, if they stopped volunteering and are taken out, then civic Scotland would collapse."