ST ANDREWS minister the Reverend Alan McDonald has been chosen as the Moderator Designate of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.

Mr McDonald (54), minister of Cameron linked with St Leonard’s Church, St Andrews, was born in Glasgow and educated at Glasgow Academy.

He studied law at Strathclyde University, graduating LLB. He trained as a legal apprentice in a Glasgow law firm, before working as a solicitor in Edinburgh.

He then had a call to the ministry, and returned to university to study for a divinity degree at New College.

He spent a year of his degree in the USA, in Boston, where he was inspired by the writings of Martin Luther King.

His church attachment involved monitoring the desegregation of the public school system, and observing the controversial bussing of Boston school pupils.

He was assistant minister at Greenside Parish Church in Edinburgh before becoming one of the first community ministers in Scotland, in Pilton, in Edinburgh.

Four years later he was called to Aberdeen to become minister of the city centre church of Holburn Central.

During his 15-year ministry the interior of the church building was completely rebuilt to form a church and halls complex as an outreach to the community. During this time he also studied part-time for a Masters degree in theology, at Edinburgh University.

Seven years ago Mr McDonald received a call to the churches in St Andrews.

Cameron is a church with a small congregation, but a new car park has been built recently to accommodate growing numbers.

St Leonards is a historic church in the town with links to schools and the University and was also recently extensively rebuilt.

As well as undertaking the duties of a parish minister, Mr McDonald was a member of the powerful and influential Church and Nation Committee, serving as convener from 2000 to 2004. During his stewardship the committee produced reports on sectarianism and Domestic Abuse.

He was the convener during the Foot and Mouth crisis and at the time of 9/11 and the war with Afghanistan.

In the run-up to the war with Iraq he was one of the speakers at the march of 100,000 people in Glasgow in February 2003, and he represented the British Churches at a briefing on Capitol Hill in Washington DC for members of Congress.

He was a Church of Scotland delegate to the first European Ecumenical Assembly held in Basle on the eve of the fall of the Berlin Wall and was an International Church Peace Monitor in the run up to the first democratic elections in South Africa, monitoring violence in the country.

Mr McDonald has been involved for many years in religious broadcasting on radio and television and is a familiar voice on BBC Scotland’s Thought for The Day.

Away from his vocation, Mr McDonald plays golf at St Andrews, runs twice a week on the West Sands, and is a keen walker.

He has always been interested in football, and his time in the Granite City has left him a keen supporter of Aberdeen FC.

Mr McDonald and his wife Judith, a GP, have two grown up children, Neil and Alison.