Four candidates in running to become Irish Presbyterian Church moderator

Ministers and elders from the church’s 600 congregations in 19 presbyteries across Ireland meet on Tuesday, February 4 to appoint a successor to the present moderator, the Rev Dr William Henry.

The four ministers nominated are:

* Rev David Bruce, 63, secretary to the Council for Mission in Ireland.

* Rev Dr Trevor McCormick, 62, minister of First Kilrea Presbyterian Church, Co Londonderry.

* Rev Richard Murray, 55, minister of Drumreagh and Dromore Presbyterian churches. Co Antrim and Co Londonderry.

* Rev Mairisíne Stanfield, 55, minister of First Presbyterian Church, Bangor.

Presbyterian chief clerk the Rev Trevor Gribben confirmed: “The minister who receives the most presbytery votes in total becomes our Moderator-designate. He or she will be formally nominated to the General Assembly in June and elected moderator.”

David Bruce was ordained in 1984 as secretary to universities and colleges Christian fellowship and was assistant minister in Wellington Street Church, Ballymena. He was later minister of Clontarf, Ormond Quay and Scots churches in Dublin, serving five years. In 1992, he become general director of Scripture Union Northern Ireland, before being appointed board of mission secretary in 2007.

Trevor McCormick has been long-serving minister of First Kilrea Church since 1986, and, later, in 2009 of nearby Boveedy church in 2009. He started as assistant minister of First Carrickfergus in 1984.

Richard Murray, a conservative cleric, has been the minister of Drumreagh and Dromore churches in Co Antrim and Co Londonderry since 2016. Richard was ordained as minister of Hilltown and Clonduff churches, Co Down in 1997 moving to Connor Church, Co Antrim in 2005. He is a son-in-law of a former moderator, the Rev Dr David McGaughey.

Scottish-born Mairisíne Stanfield has been minister of First Bangor since 2013. She was ordained in 1990 as assistant minister of Regent Street Church, Newtownards and became minister of First Ballynahinch in 1993, before being called to First Bangor 20 years later. Both David Bruce and the Rev Mairisine Stanfield made an unsuccessful bid for moderatorship last year. The Presbyterian Church has never elected a female moderator.

The Rev Trevor Gribben added: “I look forward to working with our new moderator in the service of Jesus Christ as they lead us into this new decade and beyond, with all the blessings and challenges that it may provide.”

* The new moderator, serving a year, takes up duties on the opening night of the General Assembly in Belfast on June 1-5.

Irish Presbyterianism has an almost quarter of a million membership. It is Northern Ireland’s largest Protestant denomination.