The faithful hirpling churchwards yesterday morning could not miss the newspaper billboards, all of which proclaimed that the Kirk had sanctioned for the first time the appointment of a gay minister.

The faithful hirpling churchwards yesterday morning could not miss the newspaper billboards, all of which proclaimed that the Kirk had sanctioned for the first time the appointment of a gay minister.

This was undeniably true. It was also ever so slightly misleading.

Anyone who thinks that Scott Rennie is the only gay minister preaching in Scotland needs to become reacquainted with reality.

On the morning after the night before I went to church, an infrequent occurrence. My local is Northesk in Musselburgh, East Lothian, which I attended so regularly from toddler to teenager I still have the perfect attendance prizes to show for it.

Northesk's present incumbent is Alison McDonald, the first woman to occupy the pulpit in 160 years. Except that she prefers to take services at eye level with her congregation.

Yesterday a congregation of about 100 souls gathered to sing hymns, pray and hear her preach. The majority were elderly .The Sunday School, which I used to be part of, is small.

Ms McDonald, who is eloquent with an engaging personality, first read out the intimations - the annual plant sale had raised more than £2000 - and then developed her theme for the day, which was that we should all moan a little less and do a bit more, as Jesus commanded the disciples.

In the past, when I have attended church in the midst a controversial storm, the minister has usually preferred to ignore it.

When for instance Dolly became the first cloned sheep, I visited the church nearest the Roslin Institute, to see if the minister would make any reference of this to his flock. Apart from intoning "the Lord is my Shepherd", he did not.

Ms McDonald, however, referred directly to the debate the previous night at the General Assembly which she had observed from the packed public gallery. She'd thought, she said, about giving the congregation a precis of the debate but given its length she decided otherwise.

But she was full of admiration for the manner in which the debate had been conducted, which was civilised, courteous, intelligent, even-tempered and respectful of the views of those on the both sides of the debate.

That, certainly, was my impression.

There was no cheering or jeering, as the Moderator, William Hewitt sternly instructed.

What followed was an exercise in toleration, which politicians would do well to study.

Moreover, by and large, the speakers were articulate and to the point if on occasion verbose. Leading the debate on behalf of those against Scott Rennie taking up his position at Queen's Cross Church in Aberdeen was Reverend Ian Aitken.

A less likely architect of schism it would be hard to find. Aitken, more youthful than many of his colleagues, looked at times to be painfully uncomfortable to be so thrust in the spotlight.

Ultimately, his arguments were successfully rebutted - if rather more narrowly than some had supposed - and Rennie was free to take up his charge.

Fears of him becoming a martyr to the cause evaporated, as was the possibility of him appealing to the European Union.

In Aberdeen, as elsewhere, as at Northesk in Musselburgh, he and his peers will have plenty on their plates to keep them occupied.

This weekend, though, the Kirk showed that despite the mickey-takers and the Dawkins disbelievers, it still has a lot to offer a society that used to depend on it for so much.