A Perth church is seeking to double its capacity to cater for its growing congregation.
The Trinity Church of the Nazarene on York Place can comfortably accommodate 230 people but is having to find space for up to 270 worshippers on Sunday mornings. Evening services bring another 150 to 200 people to the church, which has been established in Perth for more than 100 years.
Now the church has applied to the council to redesign the interior to accommodate the demand.
The experience of the church is in stark contrast to the situation at the Church of Scotland in Perth, where around 560 people in total attend the five city centre churches.
Trinity Church of the Nazarene senior pastor the Reverend Jim Ritchie said he believed its success lay in its ability to attract people of all ages.
He said: “The people who come are not just in their 60s upwards, we have a huge amount of children, teenagers and families with babies, every generation is represented.
“They are not going just because they think they should they really want to.”
Mr Ritchie said the church does not “water down” the gospel or attempt to “rewrite the Bible”.
“We also believe in prayer, it is the basis of our faith,” he said.
“We worship joyfully, it is exciting and relevant and we use multi-media and music.
“The church gets involved with people’s lives we have lunchtime groups, we go out to schools and Perth College, we feed the poorest and work with people with addictions.
“We get out of the church building and into people’s lives.”
Incoming Free Church of Scotland Moderator, the Reverend David Robertson, believes that it is liberal congregations failing to adhere to the Bible who are experiencing decline.
He said: Our attendances are more than holding up. Our church in Perth, under a former Church of Scotland minister, is growing and developing.
“When I came to Tayside, the Free Church had in total about 40 or 50 people and now it has over 500.”