DWINDLING congregations have long been a looming concern for the Church of Scotland.

Now now the Kirk is taking action to address another pressing issue –finding replacements for the hundreds of parish ministers due to reach retirement age within the next 10 years.

The Church has accepted 27 new candidates for training this year. With further applicants due for assessment next month, it could mark the largest intake for a decade.

Building on the Tomorrow's Calling campaign to promote parish ministry and help move the Church into a modern era, a new recruitment website and online advent calendar featuring 24 video messages specially created by ministers will go live tomorrow.

Rev Neil Glover, who at a youthful 43 years old is the Convener of the Church's Ministries Council, admitted that while they had been "slow to get to get to grips with the scale of the problem" it was now being addressed as a "top priority".

He likened the retirement challenges of the Church to those faced in other professions such as GPs and teachers.

"We currently have just over 800 ministers and more than 400 of them are aged 55 or over," he said.

"Ministers tend to work a bit beyond the normal pension age, but we now need to recruit 30 new trainees every year. With around 10 ministers usually returning to parish ministry or joining us each year, then we will be able to continue serving our parishes."

Among the budding next generation of Church of Scotland ministers is Louise Purden, 39, from Edinburgh, who is set to follow in the footsteps of her father Rev John McPake.

Ms Purden has been newly accepted as a trainee while Rev McPake, at the age of 67, has come out of retirement to work part-time as an associate minister at Edinburgh's Gorgie Dalry Parish Church.

Married with two children, Ms Purden insists that she has never felt any pressure to enter the ministry, but had recently started feeling "butterflies in her tummy" the more she thought about pursuing this path herself.

"I have worked for the church for many years doing various things – youth and children's work – and people have often said to me in the past: 'Have you ever thought about being a minister?' to which I very quickly replied: 'No, it is not for me,'" she said.

"I guess I have become more aware of the roles that ministers can have and how much the Church has enhanced my life and my family life. I want that for my children as well so I am looking forward to it."

Her father, Rev McPake, entered ministry at Edinburgh's Liberton Northfield in his mid-40s after a career with BT.

Rev McPake said he was "very encouraged and pleased" with his daughter's decision. "In a way I am not surprised but I never asked her if she was interested in becoming a minister," he said. "I just felt that if it was right, God would lead her forward in that direction."

Since the Tomorrow's Calling campaign was launched at the General Assembly in May, a series of promotional films about parish ministry have been viewed more than 100,000 times on social media.

The success led to the idea of ministers-turning-movie makers for the online advent calendar and upwards of 2,000 people have already signed up to receive the daily videos. More than 50,000 have watched the promotional video on the Church's website and Facebook page.