A minister happy to be described as a “cheerleader for the church” has said it is humbling to be named the next Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.

Rev Rosemary Frew, minister of Bowden and Melrose Parish Church in the Scottish Borders, will become the Kirk’s ambassador at home and abroad next May.

She will succeed the current Moderator, Rt Rev Dr Shaw Paterson, in the 12-month post.

Mrs Frew comes to the role with not only experience of parish ministry in Fife and the Borders, but of church involvement at presbytery and national level including as convener of the Faith Nurture Forum.

She said: “It is incredibly humbling that other people see in you the qualities and experience that they think a Moderator should have.

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“A very small number of people knew I was going forward for interviews and they all said the same thing, ‘You have got to be yourself’.

“That’s what I will bring to the job. I am bringing myself and my faith, my hope, my passions and my enthusiasm.

“Someone described me as ‘a cheerleader for the Church’ and I love that.

“I still have that passion and enthusiasm that I had when I was licensed for ministry despite all the hard times we have gone through.”

The church has always been part of her life, especially Giffnock South Parish Church where she began attending Sunday school, while growing up in Clarkston in East Renfrewshire.

Her family moved to Linlithgow, West Lothian, when she was 14 and she joined St Michael’s Church, going on to become a member of the youth fellowship and the hill-walking group and a Sunday School teacher.

Around the time of the family’s move, she read about the first married couple in Scotland to be licensed for ministry which she said planted the seed of the idea that she could become a minister.

She said: “It was a kind of epiphany.

“My experience up to that time had just been of older men in ministry and this realisation that a woman could be a minister was the planting of a seed of call at the age of 14.

“That seed was nurtured by a whole load of people, experiences and opportunities until, by the age of 21, I felt that call had to be tested.”

She studied theology at New College in Edinburgh and, during her studies, married her husband, Dave, with whom she shares son Pete, 29, and daughter Bex, 26.

The couple had met while she was working at a Christian outdoor centre, Compass Ski Centre at Glenshee Lodge, where she took a gap year while deciding if she should study for ministry.

She completed placements at Abbotshall and Viewforth churches in Kirkcaldy, Fife, and her probationary period at Markinch Parish Church, before being ordained and inducted to her first charge, Largo and Newburn with Largo: St David’s in May 1988.

Her second charge was a return to Abbotshall Parish Church in Kirkcaldy where she moved to take on a new challenge after 17 years in Largo.

She moved to Melrose in 2017, where her church attracted attention in December 2022 when it hosted the public memorial service for the late Doddie Weir who had died after a six-year battle with motor neurone disease (MND).

Following a private family service in Stow Church, Mrs Frew and Stow minister Rev Victoria Linford led the public service in the larger Melrose Parish Church.

Mrs Frew said: “It was an honour to be asked to do it and gave me a bit of an insight into the planning of an event of that scale because we didn’t realise at the time how big it would get, especially as at the heart of it were a wife and three boys who had just lost their dad.

“But it was an amazing day and Doddie’s charity does so much work around here to raise funds for research into MND. His legacy carries on.”

She is now looking forward to her year as Moderator.

She said: “I know it will be a very busy year, but a very exciting and very privileged one.”