Monday September 16 2013

Looking Back: The Mobile Ministry

An article from October 1953 explaining how the Church of Scotland was planning to minister to the large, moving communities of men building Scotland's hydro-electric network.

THE MOBILE MINISTRY

AND THE MOBILE MANSE FOR THE HYDRO CAMPS

As the skeely hands of the North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board reach out farther and farther west and north to harness the water power of the Highlands, they have been creating a problem of some complexity for the Home Board.

There is the problem of providing transport to enable local parish ministers to travel to and from the camps, on Sundays and week-days, at times most convenient for them. And, where a full-time chaplain is at work, as for example in Ross-shire just now, there are the problems of providing both transport and accommodation.

As the photograph shows, a beginning has been made with the answer. A unit consisting of a Land Rover car and a four-berth “Almond” caravan will shortly go into service for four camps in Ross-shire. To meet the problem of manpower a call goes out now to ministers who can drive a car, and particularly to experienced Industrial Chaplains with that qualification, to undertake a two- or three-month period of service between March and November, 1954. With the call to ministers goes another to Sessions, congregations and Presbyteries to release ministers who volunteer for this work.

The Home Board will meet the cost of pulpit supply during the minister’s absence, and, of course, the running and maintenance costs of the unit – though there is nothing to prevent any congregation or individual from offering to take a share in this good work.

Arrangements are being made for the unit to be open to visitors in Edinburgh, Glasgow and other places during November and December, and ministers will be asked to intimate the site and time in due course. In the meantime anyone who desires information immediately should communicate with the Organiswer for Industrial Chaplaincies.

This is just a beginning. Another transport and accommodation unit is needed to be ready for further Hydro-Electric Scheme developments; and transport is urgently needed for our ministers in Glen Garry and Glen Moriston for their Industrial Chaplaincy work in the camps in their extensive parishes. The Secretary of the Home Board, 121 George Street, Edinburgh, 2, will be most willing to accept the gift of a complete unit, or a caravan, or a car, or a donation, however large, or however small, for “Enterprise Highlands.”

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