Our Story
Since 1872 Christian believers belonging to the Baptist tradition have been part of the community of Dumfries. In the late 1870’s they built a church which was a scale replica of Spurgeon’s Tabernacle in London. This was a remarkable step of faith and incredibly visionary thing to do! The building our forefathers built was our spiritual home until Sunday 18th March 2018.
In the 1960’s DBC was on the brink of closure. A handful of ladies with the support of the Baptist Union of Scotland decided to pray and see if God would revive the church. He did! Through the 70’s-2000’s God has built the church up and today we have over 300 adults and 50 plus children and young people who consider DBC as their church family.
In the early 90’s a group of people from DBC had a vision to plant a church in the Georgetown area of Dumfries. This is mainly an owner occupier estate built in the 70’s and 80’s, which has never had a church building or any significant community facility within it. Although the vision was right the timing was wrong!
About 2005 we decided that we either had to renovate and extend our existing building, find a new bigger building or build a new building to accommodate our growing congregation. A few years later we moved our Sunday morning services to Dumfries High School.
Around the beginning of 2012 we found and purchased a 3.2 acre green field site in the Georgetown area, between the three main housing estates of Cresswell, Larchfield and Georgetown. Then began the process of designing our new church centre and seek to raise the funds necessary to build it. We officially opened and dedicated the Dumfries Baptist Church Centre to the glory of God on Saturday 12th May 2018. It was a day of fulfilment and at the same time the beginning of a new chapter!
We are thankful to God for his incredible grace and provision and for those who have stood with us in prayer and in giving. We raised almost £5,000,000 to build the centre through financial gifts and interest free loans and we have just over £500,000 of interest free loans to pay back over the next few years, once this is done we will be debt free!
The centre was built for four connected purposes: Church – Community – Commercial – Café. It is our intention to bring and share the love, life and hope we have found through faith in Jesus Christ into all these areas of the church’s life and service within the community of Dumfries.
If you want to find out more about the Christian faith, Church life, the community activities of the church or hiring and using the Centre you will find all the necessary links on this website.
