Sheilagh M. Kesting
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Sheilagh Kesting (born 10 June 1953) is a Scottish minister and the first female minister (though not the first female) to be elected Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland (in May 2007). Since 1993 she has been based at the Church of Scotland Offices in Edinburgh as the full-time Secretary of the Church of Scotland Committee on Ecumenical Relations.
Born in Stornoway, Isle of Lewis, Miss Kesting was educated at the Nicolson Institute, Stornoway and at the University of Edinburgh, where she graduated with a BA and a BD.
She was probationer for the ministry at St John’s Renfield Church, Glasgow. She then worked for a few months at the Tom Allan Centre, Glasgow, working mainly with homeless women.
Her first charge as a Church of Scotland minister was Overtown Parish Church, near Motherwell, North Lanarkshire, from 1980 until 1986. She was then minister at St Andrew’s High Church, Musselburgh, East Lothian until 1993.
She has long held a keen interest and concern for ecumenical relations, leading to her appointment as Secretary to the Committee on Ecumenical Relations in 1993. She was also Secretary to the ecumenical conversations, the Scottish Churches Initiative for Union, the talks with the United Free Church of Scotland which led to the recent signing of a Covenant, the continuing talks with the Free Church of Scotland and is joint secretary of the Joint Commission on Doctrine (of the Church of Scotland and the Roman Catholic Church).
She will be succeeded as Moderator in May 2008 by the Rev David Lunan.
