About Us

A network of Church Planters, Church Leaders and Missional Practitioners across all areas of Scotland and Ireland

Watch the Cairn Movement Vision

Faith-filled partnership working that releases the whole people of God for the whole mission of God.

If this is something that you are interested in then we would love you to join us.

Alan McWilliam

Cairn Team Leader

Alan is passionate about bringing glory to Jesus, serving his Bride and reaching those who don’t know the good news about Jesus.

He believes the church (local and translocal) is the greatest hope of the world and wants to see a vibrant Kingdom expression in every locality and network in Scotland and Ireland.

Alan has been an ordained minister in the Church of Scotland since 1993, planting in Whiteinch, Glasgow, before being released to serve the wider church. Through consultancy, training and support Alan works with many denominations, agencies and others to see new church plants and mission projects established. He is also the European Director of Forge, training and resourcing organisation for new missional expressions of church.

He serves on the Boards of Evangelical Alliance (UK), The Light College and Collective and Sound Church (Bath). He is married to Diane, has two sons and is a fervent Rangers FC supporter.

Berdien Ringland

Cairn Executive Director

Berdien helps to lead Cairn, overseeing the wider team and the Breakthrough Teams.

She is originally from the Netherlands and is married to Stuart , with their son, Finlay. Prior to moving to Scotland, Berdien lived as a missionary for 10 years in South East Asia where she pioneered a children’s home, and the Middle East where she pioneered a missions base for Iris Ministries.

Berdien is passionate about missions, societal transformation, and discipleship. She really wants to see the emerging generation rise up into all they can be in Christ. She loves to travel, spend time with friends and hike.

Scott Brennan

Cairn Community Builder

Scott’s role is to build a relational network at the heart of Cairn Movement. He will be developing and supporting the emotional and spiritual health of the Cairn Movement in conjunction with the practices of the Community of Aidan and Hilda.

Scott & Faith live on the island of Lindisfarne and lead the work of the Community of Aidan and Hilda on the island. Scott has been a church planter and church leader for 20+ years and brings all this experience to his roles for Cairn and the Community.

Wura Shote

Cairn Communications & Marketing

Wura is responsible for ensuring a joined-up approach to all of our internal and external communication. She will also be the creative lead on all of our marketing, events and website.

Wura is currently studying at Heriot Watt to achieve a Bachelors in Psychology with Business Management. She loves to sing and play the alto saxophone. She is also an active member of her church community and young adults leadership team.

Lynsey Paterson

Forge Scotland Director

Lynsey has a background in healthcare, where she previously worked as an Advanced Practitioner Speech and Language Therapist with a special interest in Autism. For the last ten years, Lynsey has worked in the voluntary sector as a Service Manager helping to develop and grow a local based charity for families of autistic young people.

Lynsey is a Church of Scotland elder at St Madoes Church and has a strong desire for mission. Lynsey graduated from Forge in 2017 and has been an active part of the Forge community ever since. Lynsey co-leads a Presbytery Missional Initiative in Perthshire called InTogether which aims to serve families with children with additional support needs. Lynsey has a passion for a church where all abilities are welcomed and included as the body of Christ and she has been involved in training churches and other Christian Organisations to help them be more inclusive.

Lynsey is married to Craig and they live in Perthshire with their teenage daughters where they enjoy walking their dog in the beautiful countryside usually followed by coffee and cake in one of the many coffee shops!

Scott McRoberts

Learning Community Development Leader

Scott is a Church of Scotland minister at St.Columba’s Church, Inverness. He has led this church for 15+ years establishing a discipleship culture throughout the congregation. Scott is passionate about seeing churches grow through refocusing on discipleship and mission. St.Columba’s has been through Learning Communities a number of times and has found the process vital in helping keep the discipleship focus. As the LC Development Leader Scott is keen to come alongside other churches to help them on this learning journey.

Scott loves good coffee, watching Scotland play rugby, and seeing people in his family (and church family) become all they can be.

David Baker

Resource Manager

David has led Baptist and New Frontiers Churches and is part of the 24-7 Prayer community. Alongside his work with Cairn he helps to lead Signpost International, an international development charity working to make life better for communities in Dundee and in Africa.

As our Resource Manager, David looks after the support and grants that Cairn gives to new church plants and missional projects through the Give Us Scotland fund. David has a passion to see the church filled with people who take radical discipleship seriously and both grow in their faith and help others grow in faith.

David is married to Sarah, has three daughters, and when not at work can usually be found in his garden.

Julie Carty

Operations Manager

Julie is from Ayrshire and is responsible for the Operation of Cairn Movement.

For the last 12 years Julie has travelled and served with Iris Global in Africa, Israel, North America & South America to train and equip the body for long term missions. Having seen the Lord move powerfully in the nations, Julie has felt a call back home to Scotland with the question “How can I apply what I experienced in the nations here in Scotland”?

In her spare time Julie loves to travel and participate in extreme activities from swimming with Whale Sharks in Mexico to paragliding in Turkey.

Cairn Board of Trustees

Faith Brennan

Chair

Faith was involved in church planting and church leadership for 20 years. She now lives with her husband, Scott, on Holy Island where they oversee a prayer room and retreat facilities as part of the Community of Aidan and Hilda.

She also runs a small property business and is a trustee on two other boards.

Alan McWilliam
Scott Brennan

Kathryn Viner

Kathryn has been a minister in the Presbyterian Church in Ireland for nearly 15 years and is currently leading Malone congregation. In various structures within her denomination she leads the strategic thinking on reimagining and revitalising the local church.

She is also co-founder and leader of Equal to Lead that seeks to encourage women and men in their shared calling to lead in the Presbyterian Church in Ireland. Following her early profession as a teacher England, Kathryn has taught undergraduates in Union Theological College and Belfast Bible College. Kathryn has been through the Learning Communities and now coordinates and co-leads the Learning Communities in Ireland.

Kathryn lives in Belfast with her husband Jonathan and their two children and Daisy their black Labrador.

Rich Robinson

Rich serves on the Cairn team and is responsible for Collaboration and work with Christian entrepreneurs (in partnership with CREO).

He also serves, beyond Cairn, as the Team Leader for Catalyse Change, which provides training and coaching globally for church leaders, network leaders and entrepreneurs. The various initiatives of the charity are all created to equip and enable leaders in releasing potential through discipleship and leadership cultures; activating movemental dynamics and disruptive innovation in their context, and catalysing spiritual, strategic and social change for the good of others. Catalyse Change has initiatives such as 5Q Collective; CREO(working with Christian entrepreneurs) and Movement Leaders Collective amongst others. Over the past 20 years he has led pioneering work in missional disciple-making, innovation and entrepreneurship, and organisational change across the globe.

Locally, he lives in Edinburgh, Scotland, and is married to Anna, who is a writer and editor, and they have three children: Josiah, Esther and Samuel. They are passionate about living with integrity and intentionality as a family that follows and shares Jesus.

Alan McWilliam
Scott Brennan

Ian Burleigh 

An Architect by profession, Ian is founder and Executive Chairman of Ica Studio, leading international hotel designers. His other business interests include hotels and property. Ian is also Chair of Nazarene Theological College which is affiliated to both the University of Manchester and the Church of the Nazarene. As a church planter, Ian has advised and led a number of projects, most notably the use of an old pub in the east end of Glasgow as the base for a new church mission. A participant in Cairn’s 2016 Forge Pioneer course, Ian is passionate about supporting others to innovate in mission and ministry. He brings to Cairn experience from business, governance, education, hospitality, church planting and mission.

Charity Bowman-Webb

Charity is passionate about the prophetic and creative. She is the Director of Streams Creative House with Streams Ministries International. This pioneering ministry seeks to equip believers in revelatory and creative gifting – motivating their Kingdom commissions. Charity teaches and ministers regularly in different nations and is the author of two books’ Limitless’ and ‘Creative Fusion’

Alan McWilliam
Alan McWilliam

Karen Ferguson

Karen works in communication and concept development specialising in helping individuals, organisations, and projects to grow well, from start ups- to large organisations. Her work encompasses various sectors including early years, family health and wellbeing, mental health, and substance misuse.

She is passionate about good communication and organisational health, and loves to see people released into their full potential.

Alan McWilliam

Alan, in addition to being the Cairn CEO is also a Trustee

Our Core Beliefs

Whether your desire is to be equipped for the every evolving circumstances that make up the world we live in today, or to collaborate and influence your faith and local community, Cairn have a stream that will help you achieve your goals. We want to work together with others to see a loving, worshipping, witnessing Kingdom community in every locality and network in Scotland and Ireland.

We believe that Jesus is the hope of our world.

We are confident in his message of hope, life and love.

We see a rising hunger for the wonderful good news that he offers.

We know this work will take the whole body of Christ to collaborate, believing we cannot do it alone.

We believe that in Christ, the body of Christ in Scotland and Ireland have everything within them to reach our nations.

We believe that passionate, persistent prayer is foundational.

We know that change is needed to move the agenda of the church towards a missional posture.

We believe that a collaborative relational network resourcing mission and discipleship is vital.

We want to mobilise a missionary movement in Scotland and Ireland.

Cairn Movement adhere to the EA Basis of Faith

 

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