THE Rev John McIndoe, minister at St Columba's Church, Pont Street,
London, since 1988, was yesterday nominated as the next Moderator of the
General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, which will meet in Edinburgh
in May.
Mr McIndoe, 61, was convener of the Kirk's church and nation
committtee from 1980-84 and was vice-convener of the business committee
of the General Assembly from 1988-90.
He will be the second successive Moderator to come from the Presbytery
of England, following the Right Rev James Harkness, who was
Chaplain-General to the Forces.
He is the third minister of St Columba's, one of the Kirk's two
churches in London, to be put forward as Moderator, following the Very
Rev Dr J Fraser McLuskey in 1983 and the Very Rev Dr R F V Scott in
1956.
Mr McIndoe is also minister of St Andrew's, Newcastle, which is linked
to Pont Street. He was minister of St Nicholas Parish Church, Lanark,
from 1972-88 before going to London.
The Moderator-Designate was born in Sunderland of Scottish parents in
1934 and lived in Kilcreggan, Dunbartonshire, from 1944 when his father
took up an appointment with the Inland Revenue.
He was educated at Greenock Academy and Glasgow University, where he
obtained his Bachelor of Divinity and Master of Arts degrees. He also
studied at Hartford in the United States.
He was ordained by Paisley Presbytery in 1960 and was assistant at
Paisley Abbey from 1960-63. He was minister of Dundee Park Church from
1963-72. He was an assessor in the Kirk's selection school in education
for the ministry (1970-86) and a delegate to the World Council of
Churches Assembly in Vancouver in 1983. He is a former moderator of both
Lanark and England presbyteries.
Mr McIndoe is involved with Borderline, the Kirk's agency which helps
homeless young people in London. He married Evelyn Johnstone in 1960 and
the couple have three grown-up daughters.
He said last night he felt both honoured and challenged. ''Ministering
in London, I am aware the Kirk has quite a hinterland of people who are
part of the Scottish dispersion, plus people of other nationalities who
attach themselves to the Kirk out of choice.''
The church's task, he said, was to keep steady and provide a point of
solidity and friendliness in broken communities and broken
relationships.
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