Since the previous pastor left, the congregation of around 20-30 on Sundays have had visiting speakers from the mainland who often stay in the manse for a fortnight and preach for two Sundays and then return home.
Ian MacKinnon, a member of the church who has lived on the island since he was a toddler, told Premier their visiting speakers were good but the arrangement wasn’t ideal: “It’s quite a challenge, we’ve been supplied with very able preachers Sunday by Sunday… some of the members of the congregations have taken services as well but we are fully aware of our limitations!
“We’d like to have somebody who is a leader, a spiritual leader, in the community because we feel the island is in need of it and it’s very much to our detriment not having one.”
When asked why it’s been hard to fill the vacancy, he said: “It’s not everyone’s cup of tea at the end of the day because people here are quite isolated.”
He added that another factor was the wide range of backgrounds that exist in the congregation: “We are the only established Church of Scotland on Tiree… we work very closely with the local baptist church and there’s another home church as well, a small home community, but by and large we cater for the island parish and it’s difficult because in our services and during our worship we have people from a Catholic faith, someone from the Episcopal church, Church of England, we’ve got Methodist and…
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