Head of Christian Aid Scotland Named Moderator-Designate

Friday October 28 2022

The Head of Christian Aid Scotland has been named as the Moderator-Designate of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland for 2023.

The Rev Sally Foster-Fulton said she was looking forward to meeting and encouraging people involved in church work at local, national and international level at a time of unprecedented challenge and opportunity.

She said: “I’m excited about what the year will bring. I genuinely love and am inspired by the Church of Scotland and its people. Over the past years of the pandemic in the face of a global climate emergency and now a cost-of-living crisis, people across the Church have been stepping up and doing their very best to make an extraordinary impact in communities, locally, across our nation and in the world.”

Born and raised in South Carolina in the USA, Mrs Foster-Fulton has been a Church of Scotland minister for more than 20 years, serving in Camelon Irving Parish Church in Falkirk and as associate minister in Dunblane Cathedral. She also had a spell, with husband the Rev Stuart Fulton, as co-pastors as a Presbyterian Church (USA) congregation in South Carolina.

The couple now live in Glasgow, where Stuart serves the parish of Newlands South Church. They have two adult daughters, Alex and Gracie, and recently became grandparents - an event which Mrs Foster-Fulton said has “shifted her perspective and given new meaning” to her commitment to try and make the world a better place.

Mrs Foster-Fulton convened the Church of Scotland's Church and Society Council from 2012-16, during which time she helped advance work on human rights, climate justice, poverty, asylum seekers and refugees. She was also involved in the Church's efforts to encourage 'respectful dialogue' ahead of the 2014 Scottish Independence Referendum.

Mrs Foster-Fulton said the Church of Scotland’s voice on national and international issues has authenticity because it represents people working across the country to support and uplift local communities: “What church congregations do locally in their communities is critical. It is what gives the Church’s voice validity when we speak truth to power.

“Sometimes we talk about local and international work as if it is an either or, but if there is one thing my work with the Church of Scotland, Christian Aid, this recent pandemic and the climate crisis has affirmed, is that we are all in this together.

“There is no separation between what we do for people in our global neighbourhood and what we do here at home.

“There is no them and us, there is just us and we have all got to look after one another.”

During her time as Moderator she will take a sabbatical from her role at Christian Aid Scotland, which she has held since 2016. Subject to approval from the General Assembly in May 2023, the role involves chairing the Assembly - the highest court of the Church - and acting as the Church's ambassador at home and abroad for the following year.

November's Life and Work is out now.

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