Our mission statement is to know Jesus better and to make Jesus better known. For over 200 years, our small church at the heart of the community has been fulfilling this mission in various ways as weve sought to follow Jesus example of loving God and loving our neighbours.

God has blessed us in our mission but for many years the lack of appropriate space in our current church building has hampered our ability to develop and expand our ministry and outreach efforts. In the past, we have been forced to hire external venues to accommodate our children and youth ministries. Other events and group meetings in the church were restricted by the lack of space and accessibility.

In the autumn of 2019, a large building directly opposite the church went on the market and appeared to be a God-given opportunity to gain some much-needed space for our ministries. After much prayer and consideration, we decided to purchase 7 Academy Street and the keys were handed over to us the week before Christmas 2020.

Since then, God has been leading us on a challenging and exciting journey. In March 2020 we raised some funds to repair the exterior of the building and we started work on a masterplan for the refurbishment of the inside of the building. In the short term, the space will be invaluable to support our existing ministries, including children and youth work activities on a Sunday, our mature persons group and midweek Toddlers sessions. We are also eager, longer-term, to see the building used as a social space for coffee and chat, for fellowship meals, youth clubs, Christianity Explored courses, counselling, conferences, music and craft groups, games clubs, movie evenings, clothes bank, fitness clubs and Messy Church. We long, with the grace God provides, to bless our local community in many ways, always keeping the gospel central.

We are now seeking final approval of the Building Warrants and have been successful in various funding applications to CARES (to improve the energy efficiency), the Benefact Trust and the Beatrice Laing Trust. Our congregation has already given so generously towards the work. We have also organised several well-received fundraising events, including coffee mornings, craft and baking sales, and a ceilidh. As we await the go-ahead from Moray Council

, we are mobilising to take down internal partitions and plasterboard, to ready the spaces and make fitting insulation easier.

We have been incredibly encouraged by the support of many individuals from across Elgin and beyond who have attended our fundraising events and the work of Moray Justce team to help with the down-taking. More donations, however, are still needed to match the estimated price tag (which will be confirmed after the project goes through a competitive tendering process). Although the numbers in a project of this scale are not small, we trust that where God has called us, He will equip us. As we continue this challenging and exciting journey, we believe that He will guide us and provide for us as we seek to be a bright light in a dark world.

Would you be willing to help? Any donation would be greatly appreciated and will help to create a space that can be such a blessing to the people of Elgin.

To give you a sense of the space inside, here is a photo from 17th June 2023, showing progress so far with the down-taking (we are aiming to de-nail the timber and laths to make it into useful firewood):

2nd October 2023 update - firstly, some more photographs to show the amazing progress with down-taking.

We are also clearing the site of scrap metals (to the relevant local merchant) and de-nailing the wood, especially the laths, which are being sold as kindling.

If you would like a box or bag of very well-seasoned kindling, please do get in touch.

15th December 2023: we still have plenty of kindling to sell but we are also delighted with the progress made in down-taking and clearing the site. As you will see in the photos, even most of the flooring is lifted and the spaces are ready to be handed-over to a main contractors who will undertake the refurbishment once we have final approval of the Building Warrants. You'll notice the doors that are free to a good home but can easily be cleared away when the professionals get started.

15th April 2024: having sold or transformed all the wood into boxes of kindling, we began to tackle the cabling, stripping out the copper. So far, we have raised over £1000 from selling the scrap metal to a local dealer, which is brilliant.

Even better, our Building Warrant was approved at the end of January and we are moving towards concluding the tender process with the appointment of a main contractor to take forward the work.

6th June 2024: we are delighted to announce that Hawksley Joinery and Construction has been appointed as the main contractor for the refurbishment with the church members voting unanimously to endorse this selection. Work will start in August and should take 9-12 months. We are still looking to raise more funds to cover the costs of furnishing the building, so please do consider donating to this exciting project, if you can.

29th August 2024: Hawksley Construction have taken over the site and are making good progress with the refurbishment. You can see from the photos how the internal framing of the spaces is coming together. Previously, the inside of our stone walls was brushed down and holes patched-up with lime mortar to help ensure the building stay water-tight.