A FORMER shop assistant is set to become the youngest Church of Scotland minister currently active today.
Stuart Love, 25, will be ordained at Clincarthill Parish Church on the southside of Glasgow on Thursday evening.
The former sales assistant at WH Smiths in Hamilton said he was “excited and nervous” about his new role in equal measure.
Mr Love, who worked in retail between 2007-2013, said his parents Lorna and Robin told him that he declared at the age of five that he wanted to be either a Church minister or the Prime Minister when he grew up.
He added that his calling to Clincarthill Parish Church was a sign that “God is not finished” with the Church of Scotland.
Joint clerk of the Presbytery of Glasgow Rev Dr Graham Blount said the ordination of a 25-year-old minister was a clear sign that “rumours of the Church of Scotland’s demise are greatly exaggerated”.
Mr Love of Hamilton, who attended Townhill Primary School and what is now Calderside Academy in Blantyre, is a graduate of the International Christian College in Glasgow, now known as the Scottish School of Christian Mission, (2009-2013) and New College in Edinburgh (2013-15).
Mr Love, who is married to Ruth whose father is Rev Gordon Palmer of Claremont Parish Church in East Kilbride, did his probationer year at Dalziel St Andrews Church in Motherwell.
“I am excited but nervous about being ordained as the minister of Clincarthill Parish Church,” he said.
“I have been training for the ministry for nearly seven years and it is really great to be finally at a point when I am taking on my first charge.
“I feel a strong sense of calling to the parish and I really care about the people there so I want to do my best - that is where the nerves come from I think.
“I believe this is what God has called me to do with my life and I have had a sense of call from a young age.”
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