Northern Lights - Dornoch & District Christian Fellowship

Written for the FIEC Website

The town of Dornoch sits in the far north of Scotland and is famous for the Royal Dornoch Golf Course, the exclusive Skibo Castle, and celebrity weddings. Andy Hunter introduces us to a growing gospel witness there.

Dornoch is an hour’s drive beyond Inverness. Madonna was famously married in Dornoch Cathedral but the town is also home to ‘Dornoch and District Christian Fellowship’ (DDCF) which became FIEC’s most northerly mainland church in 2015.

It was founded in October 1994 following a time of much prayer, heart searching and seeking the Lord’s guidance by a group of six Christians. The result of this process was a conviction that God was leading them to establish something new. Beginning with initial house group meetings they were quickly joined by other Christians in town and the communities around Dornoch.

The new church broke with more traditional churches in the area in having modern praise songs, guitar accompaniment, open prayer, informal fellowship and lay preachers. This, of course, reflected changes many churches were making at that time and was clearly a work of God’s Spirit. Over the years as DDCF has itself changed and become established it now works with other evangelical churches in the area.

A growing children’s work

Meetings began in the Council Chambers with the hope of attracting people from the local communities who had no particular attachment to existing local churches. God has blessed this desire and has brought into the church people from across the area. It has been in particular joy to see young families attending and the setting up of a healthy Sunday School.

Now established as a church, DDCF reaches out into the community with a weekly parents and toddlers group and weekly coffee mornings. These activities have been the entry point for a number of people attending the church and coming to faith.

An annual week long football camp at Easter, led by an ‘On Goal’ team from the USA and local volunteers, has attracted up to 100 children. The result is that the seed of the gospel has been sown among hundreds of children over the years and has resulted in DDCF being involved in a youth fellowship initiative.

A real blessing for the fellowship is the way that God has used gifted men from within the membership, together with others from different evangelical backgrounds, to preach God’s word week by week. This brings a sense of belonging to something bigger than DDCF along with a richness and diversity of Bible teaching in the church.

Praying for Dornoch

Looking forward the church would love to find a permanent facility that would be open every day for the glory of God. This has been the fellowship’s prayer for a number of years but so far the answer seems to be ‘not yet’.

Joining FIEC, and being part of family of more than 560 gospel churches, has been a huge encouragement to them.

Pastor Grant Fairns noted a quote from John Stevens expressing the gospel vision that DDCF shares with its fellow FIEC churches:

“It is a dynamic message that is to be lived and proclaimed so that men and women will come to repentance and faith and have their lives transformed by a new relationship with Jesus Christ.”

Please pray for DDCF:

• that they may find a permanent building
• that their testimony in Sutherland and Easter Ross will be to live and proclaim the gospel in such a way that God would be glorified by them.