The Darnley Story By Rev. Colin Brown
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It was on the first Sunday of October 1976 that Rev. John Banks invited the handful of people who had gathered in Darnley Primary School, to join him in worship of God and the story of Darnley Church started. He had been unsure as to how many people would turn up for the service which was held at three o’clock in the afternoon, and he was far from convinced that much would come of the idea. However Renee Wotherspoon, then Head Teacher of the school had assured him that local people were keen to have Church services in Darnley and children from the school had distributed leaflets to homes in the area inviting people to come to the first service. Darnley was a new community on the southern edge of the City of Glasgow with few local amenities and no Church. However, a new Primary School had been opened and Renee appointed as Head Teacher. With no local minister, John, at that time minister of Cathcart UF Church had agreed to act as school chaplain but initially with no thought of holding weekly services, far less of establishing a congregation. When very few had gathered for that first service he must have wondered if even that was worthwhile.
more and more people kept arriving, adults and children, until around thirty people were present. Initially the services were to be held for a trial period of one month but it was evident that there were quite a number of people in Darnley looking for a place to worship and so the services continued. In those early days there were a lot of children attending and a happy informal style of worship developed, but it was clear that some kind of Sunday School was needed. The only person present at the very first service who is still active in the life of the congregation was Mrs Elizabeth McNaughton. She took on the role of Sunday School superintendent and acted as a treasurer. Moira Banks assisted with the Sunday School and started a woman’s meeting. A vision of a new Church in a new community began to emerge in John Banks’ mind but how could such a vision become a reality? What was possible? Any kind of church extension project would cost a lot of money and there were very few resources locally.
However, as the service progressed
to run a midweek children’s club and
As the work progressed, people from other congregations came to help. John Cross came over from Croftfoot
a young girl from Cathcart called Jan Mathieson, who occasionally played the piano at the Sunday services, also came to help with the club. From the very beginning, working in Darnley has had some unexpected consequences! Establishing a congregation in Darnley was one thing but providing a building and a minister were quite another but at the General Assembly of 1977; the vision of a new Church in Darnley was presented. Of course there were those with reservations about the viability of such a project and that was understandable. Building a new Church and providing a minister for the new congregation would cost a lot of money. Darnley was not an affluent area and other denominations had already indicated that they would not be doing anything there. How would the new congregation be sustained? Where would leadership come from? There were very real questions to be addressed but there was also a real need. During the debate at the General Assembly of 1977, Rev Gordon Cowan made this point with reference to Darnley, ‘…it is always going to be a difficult area in which to work, but surely that is all the more reason why we should be there’. Here was an important point made at the launch of the Darnley project. Concerns about how big the membership might become or how strong the congregation would be financially had to be of secondary concern, the first priority was the spiritual need of the people of the area. So the General Assembly and launched an appeal to support the new project and the Church had to rise to the challenge. Many gave
generously and there was a great deal of hard work both locally in Darnley and across the denomination, but raising the finance proved a difficult challenge and the full cost of the new building could not be met. The original plans had to be amended and instead of a separate Church and hall, there would be just one multipurpose hall. We had to wait until 2004 before the original plan became a reality. Finding a minister also proved to be difficult. No-one it seemed wanted to take up the challenge and go and live in a council flat in Darnley. Eventually, I suppose, in desperation the Committee responsible for the Darnley project found a very young and inexperienced young man finishing his course of studies at University. He would be appointed to Darnley but John Banks would continue as interim Moderator, for a while and if nothing else it would be a stop gap measure. And that is what it has turned out to be, although the gap may have been a little longer that at first anticipated! A site for the new building was purchased and in the spring of 1980 the plot was dedicated by the Moderator of the General Assembly of 1979, Rev. Dr Alfred Merriweather. On the same day I was inducted as the minister of Darnley Congregation. The official opening of the new Darnley Church took place on a memorable day in January 1981. Such was the demand, both locally and throughout the denomination, that two almost identical services were held and the Church designed to seat around 120 people welcomed over 400 for the occasion. The Church now had a visible presence in the
community. There was a new building and a minister in place so in a sense the Darnley project had achieved its goal, but of course for the congregation, far from being the end, it marked the beginning of a new chapter. The story of Darnley Church has had a few more twists and turns over the years but more than thirty five years on the work and witness continues. Darnley has changed dramatically over the years and has been transformed from an unattractive, socially deprived area into a pleasant Glasgow suburb. These changes in the community have, of course been reflected in changes in the congregation. Darnley Church situated in the heart of the community is a busy place and home to a vibrant and growing congregation. The full story has been told and the telling of it has been an interesting and thought provoking exercise and I am grateful to those who have encouraged me to undertake the task, but what of the lessons it has to teach us. Darnley was not and is not unique. All over Scotland there are new housing developments, new communities but where is the Church in these places? Some new areas do have a Church presence but not everywhere. Some, perhaps the smaller or more rural developments can be overlooked just as Darnley could have been. There are other new developments planned but where will the Church be in those places? Providing a place of worship is unlikely to be in the developer’s mind and unless the Church is ready to be involved at the planning stage
it may well miss out. In some planned new towns and villages such as Forestmill in Clackmannanshire and Chalepelton of Elswick in Aberdeenshire the Churches are involved in the planning process but that is not the case everywhere. Unless we get involved there may be no Christian witness. This is not only an issue for future areas of development but is already a reality in many communities. These are not easy times for the Church in Scotland but we need to rise to the challenge. There were plenty of good reasons for not trying to do anything in Darnley. We can always find reasons not to do something. We could not do Darnley again. So what happens to the new Darnley’s or the rural places where providing ministry seems so difficult and the upkeep of buildings, impossible? ‘With God all things are possible’. New congregations will not happen according to the Darnley model. Times have changed no two situations are the same in any case. We do need to do things differently and the Church will not operate in the future as it has in the past but we need to be there .It not just an issue for the United Free Church but for the whole of the Church in our land. It is not just about increasing the size of our denomination or about making us feel better about ourselves but about doing what Christ commanded us and about being there because there is a need. 14