Introducing the Centre for Public Christianity

AT the re-opening of St Peters Free Church on November 28th, those who attended were given news of a proposed Centre for Public Christianity.

Poverty – Scotland is in deep spiritual poverty. Our once famed education system is in decline, and there is brokenness about a great deal of our society. A brokenness which we believe can only be healed when there is a return to the values, tolerance, freedom and beauty of the Word of God. The great atheist/secularist experiment to create a nation without Christianity has been a disaster, and we are now reaping the consequences. Our people are starving spiritually. This is where the Centre for Public Christianity comes in.

Purpose – We aim to teach, communicate and exemplify the wonderful news of the Bible that God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself. We aim to encourage Christians who have far too often been cowed into accepting the inevitability of the triumph of secularism into once again being confident in their faith and being willing and able to share it. The famine caused by materialistic atheism and secularism, combined with the destructiveness of modernism and the confusion of post-modernism, has opened up a great door of opportunity for the Good News. The CPC will seek to promote the proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ in Scotland, the UK and throughout Europe.

Plan – St Peter’s Free Church in Dundee has just completed a £800,000 redevelopment that will provide offices, rooms, a conference centre and media capabilities for the CPC. We love the idea that a building which was a centre for renewal and revival in the 19th century, instead of being turned into a pub or flats, is once again being used for that purpose.

We now need the people to staff and develop the centre, to provide training and leadership, and to help us liaise with church, society and media. All this will lead to...

Preparation – Peter tells us that we are to ‘always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have’ (1 Peter 3:15). But many of us feel unprepared. That is why a major part of the centre will be to provide training for Christians, churches and Christian organisations, in learning how to proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ, in the light of the questions, fears, prejudices and opportunities of contemporary culture. We will try to provide the best speakers in their fields so that the training will be high quality. We aim to provide training days; weekends and weeks, as well as media based resources. We aim to establish training courses in the use of media, art, music, philosophy, science, medicine, and history in evangelistic apologetics.

We will seek to engage with the media throughout Scotland, the UK and Europe and we will seek to conduct public communication and outreach events in the marketplace as far as the Lord enables us.

Potential – The potential for this is enormous. It is our conviction that society in Scotland and indeed throughout the UK is more open to the Gospel now than it has been for 25 years.

How will they hear unless someone tells them? The ripple effect of hundreds of Christians enthused and trained to proclaim the Gospel in the marketplaces of a culture hungry for truth, beauty, and meaning will be enormous.

If you would like to know more visit the St Peter’s website www.stpeters-dundee.org.uk or pick up a brochure from the St Peter’s office, 4 St Peter St, Dundee, DD1 4JJ +44 (0)1382 807004