The Kirk plans to ordain lay members because it cannot find ministers for one in six of its parishes.. Senior officials at the Church of Scotland yesterday confirmed what they called a “bold experiment” to turn parishioners into fully-fledged preachers for the first time since the Reformation.

The move breaks with the centuries-old tradition of university-educated ministers and shows how seriously the Kirk is taking its efforts to keep the faith alive in the country’s most remote areas.

The Church of Scotland has 961 ordained ministers but 199 vacancies, many of them in rural parts of the country once considered part of the Presbyterian heartland.

Martin Scott, secretary of the Church’s ministries council, the body responsible for the training of new clerics, said: “There are places in Scotland where, really, ministry as we have known it – one minister, one manse, one parish – is becoming unsustainable in terms of the number of folk around to do the job.

“But that doesn’t have to mean that it will be impossible to continue worship and normal parish life. It just means that we have to think differently.”

The Kirk’s proposed solution is what Scott calls “locally ordained ministers” – members of churches who will train, probably on the job, to preach, do pastoral work and, crucially, carry out sacraments, like Communion and baptisms.

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