Anne thanked for her 20 years of prime ministry

THE Rev Anne Logan has retired from Stockbridge Parish Church after nearly 20 years with the congregation.

Mrs Logan represents the third generation of ministers in her family – both her father and grandfather were Church of Scotland ministers.

Born in Falkirk, she studied at Edinburgh University and trained for the ministry at New College. She served as probationer assistant at Carrick Knowe Parish Church before becoming assistant minister at Liberton Kirk. After that, she helped out at St Martin’s in Magdalene Drive, then spent four years at Granton Congregational Church.

Before moving to Stockbridge Parish Church in 1993, Mrs Logan worked for six-and-a-half years as assistant minister at St George’s West, Shandwick Place, alongside the Rev Bob Glover. While there she helped develop the Open Church programme, which saw the church open every day for lunches, coffees and snacks, and shared in the chaplaincy work to West End shops and offices,

In Stockbridge she became minister of a new congregation formed by merging St Bernard’s in Saxe-Coburg Street with St Stephen’s in St Vincent Street. She helped the church start and support the Stockbridge and New Town Community Orchestra. She also added a further three degrees to her original two.

She completed a Master of Theology degree from Edinburgh University, a Doctor of Ministry degree at Princeton and a PhD from Glasgow University on the “Ordained Women Ministers of the Church of Scotland”. Mrs Logan and husband Michael, a consultant anaesthetist, married 35 years ago in East Calder Parish Church, where her father was minister at the time. The couple have two sons – Jonny, a naval architect, and Chris, a doctor. Both have made their name in the world of rowing, becoming gold medallists for Scotland in the Commonwealth Rowing Regattas in 2006 and 2010.

Elspeth Porter, session clerk at Stockbridge, said: “Anne has cared for the whole congregation with love and imagination. Her attention to hospital and nursing home visiting has been second to none.

“Everyone at Stockbridge has been blessed by Anne’s ministry. She has been a very popular minister and she will be much missed.”

Mrs Logan attended her final service as minister last week. “It was a great celebration followed by a specially composed song from the choir, lunch and a very large chocolate cake,” she said.

“What I enjoyed most about life in Stockbridge was the privilege of being allowed to share in the lives and worship of the congregation. Ministers are allowed to walk with people at the best and worst times of their lives. It has been an immense privilege to share, just for a little time, in the ongoing journey of the congregation.”