DINGWALL & STRATHPEFFER FREE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND

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Dingwall Church History

Our church began because of tensions around 160 years ago between ordinary Christians, wealthy landowners, and the civil government.  These tensions resulted in restrictions that hampered the freedom of the Presbyterian Church to serve Scotland effectively. The national Presbyterian Church divided into two parts in 1843 (an event so upsetting that it was termed The Disruption) to form the Kirk and the Free Kirk (a church free from state control).

 

The parish minister of Dingwall at that time was Hector Bethune. He chose to remain in the Established Kirk.  His decision led some evangelicals in the area to stay with the Established Church.  At the Disruption the great majority of “evangelicals” around Scotland left the national Church to found the new Free Church.

 

Evangelicals are Christians who accept the Bible as a true and reliable book and who encourage a deep and personal commitment towards God. A majority of people in the Dingwall Parish Church decided they would support the new Free Church.  Most Presbyterians in Ross-shire were evangelical at that time and almost all joined the new Free Church providing a Free Church in each parish.

 

A church and manse were built at Castle Street in Dingwall in 1844.  The new Dingwall Free Church invited a young student, John Kennedy, to be their first minister.  Dr Kennedy was to exercise a uniquely influential, wide-reaching and popular ministry lasting over forty years.  The church in Castle Street was unsuited to the needs of the congregation and the present vast church, capable of seating over a thousand people, was built in the High Street, and opened in May 1870 by a friend of Kennedy, the London based Baptist leader, Charles Spurgeon. 

 

Pastors in the 20th Century included Norman Campbell (1908-1946), Duncan Leitch (1947-1970), Murdo Alex MacLeod (1972-1978), Neil Shaw (1979-1988), and John Angus MacLeod (1989-1999). 

John Angus MacLeod is now Professor of New Testament Studies and Greek at the Free Church College in Edinburgh.  The present minister, Angus MacRae, was ordained in 1992 and has served this church since 2001. He is Clerk to the local Presbytery and is a member of the Scottish Council of OMF International.

 

The Dingwall church building is “Gothic” in style. It has an unusual octagonal domed belfry on one of two gable towers.  The gable walls each have large stained-glass windows.  The larger of these, a beautiful rose window behind the pulpit, has a colourful glass “wheel” measuring over five meters in diameter set within the sweep of a stone arch.  The pulpit is uniquely wide.  Effectively a fourth gallery, at eight meters in length, it was constructed to suit Dr Kennedy’s lively preaching style. 

 

A major renovation of the church building is underway.  Dry rot and wet rot problems have been successfully corrected, and the roof and exterior stonework have been restored to an excellent condition.  In February 2008 the church commenced a refurbishment and modernisation program to upgrade facilities and refurbish the interior for contemporary mission and ministry. Sunday Services are presently held in the local Primary School at 11 am, and in the church hall at 6 pm.