Pastor Arthur was a pioneer minister in Pollok, Glasgow for three years and completed his probation as Assistant Pastor at Victory Christian Centre in Govan, Glasgow.

Arthur and his wife Linda live in Foxbar, Paisley with their children Dee, Allen, Ben and Katie. (Allen gets married to the lovely Jade in July)

The church started on 30th January, 2000 with a core group of six which included our Praise & Worship Team - the wonderful Laura! Apart from taking the Prasie & Worship  Laura was also our Treasurer, our Administrator, our Youth worker, our very good friend. ( I honestly don't know what we would have done without you Laura)

We started off holding services in the Village Halls in Elderslie every Sunday morning and at one of those services Pastor Arthur looked out the window behind him and said "See the derelict church building behind me, God is going to GIVE it to us!" What a bold statement - I think there were now about 10 of us and we thought, how are we going to buy that, in fact could it even be bought?

Well, sit back and enjoy this wonderful true story of what happened next....

Pastor Arthur made enquiries as to who owned the building and he discovered it was in the process of being sold by the Renfrewshire Council (the present owners) to a group of property developers who were going to turn the old Church of Scotland building into six 1 bedroom flats - Pastor Arthur spoke to the Council administrator and said "That can't be, because God has told me he is giving us that building".  Silence ! The Council Administrator eventually responded and said "Well if there are any changes I will let you know".  Sure enough the administrator called to say that the Sale had fallen through and that the property would again be advertised for sale shortly.

The property was advertised in the Glasgow Herald at offers over £35,000, the low asking price was due to the very poor condition of the building.  Pastor Arthur was excited, he was excited with the hope of knowing God was in this project and therefore appointed Lawyers to make an official offer to the council.  We knew it would be a few months before we would know the outcome but it seemed to take forever but Pastor Arthur was confident it was ours and he was right, the phone call came to say that they had accepted our offer ------ our offer of TEN POUNDS!  Isn't that amazing?  Isn't God AMAZING?  God told Pastor Arthur he would GIVE us the building and so on the day when the offer was due Pastor Arthur was given £10 to make an offer with.

But this was just the start, the start of a lot of hard work carried out by Arthur and a few loyal members and friends ......... but God was in this whole project.  The church had to be totally stripped, walls knocked down, floors lifted and everything dumped.  The main hall had plaster board painted blue which was soaking wet so that came off quite easily but what was revealed underneath stunned us all, it was the stone work which had never ever been a feature and so it was decided there and then that the utmost care would be used to bring those dead stones back to life and that's what they did.  That job of working with the stonework in itself took over 3 months to devotedly clean it and then have the pointing done in between all the stone.  You should see it now!  Wow ! An amazing feature! There were no toilets so toilets had to be plumbed in and so three sets of toilets were erected.  A large kitchen and cafe area was also made  and with lovely leather couches being donated by Reids furniture, Tables  & Curtains from Ikea -  Made the place look just Beautiful!  Back in the main hall , the Sanctuary, we needed new windows, we saved what we could from the stain glass windows and renewed the small back windows with this but it was plain glass we had to use for the long side windows. The Mahogany wood pannelling was given to us at 50% discount.  What about  the heating?, We didn't have any!  It was freezing! Well we had a firm come and see us on the Monday evening and he estimated it was going to cost £13,000 ( I think we had about £1,000 in the bank now) so we had another firm come on the Tuesday evening  and he had a look around and then said " I don't why I'm saying this but I will GIVE you a new heating system and my men will put it in for you! "  Woohoo! What next?, Well we needed carpeting so Pastor Arthur heads off to see Stoddard Carpets, no result but hopeful that they would come through with something, he was right they phoned a few days later and asked him to go up to the factory and have a look at a couple of carpets ......... We needed loads of carpet, Ten Thousand Pounds worth of carpet - Stoddards were delighted to GIVE us the carpet!!!!  And that was how the church continued to be restored , by the generosity of the local businesses and of course by the Faithful Hand of God.

The official opening of the church which we simply called 'Elderslie Church' took place in October 2003  - Almost 3 years and the church building was restored.

On 4th September 2005, the church was renamed East Gate Church based on the scriptures Ezekiel 43:1-4, declaring our commitment to seeing the glory of God back in His church.

"the man brought me back around to the east gateway and suddenly the Glory of God of Israel appeared from the east and the sound of His coming was like the roar of rushing waters and the whole landscape shone with His glory..."

The building itself was originally known as Elderslie East Church and had its origins in the great Disruption of 1843 when around 500 ministers yielded their parishes, manses and stipends to break away from the Church of Scotland and from the Free Church of Scotland.

There were a number of people in Elderslie who, for various reasons, did not belong to the Church of Scotland. As Elderslie's population expanded, it was eventually decided to build a church for those who did not belong to the National Kirk.

This resulted in the construction of Elderslie Free Church in 1899.

Due to falling membership it was decided in 1977 that Elderslie East Church would close (and amalgamate with Elderslie Kirk).

The building remained in a progressively dilapidated state until the summer of 2001 when the re-building work commenced and its doors were open again to the community in 2003.

The Vision  is to have a church that is the centre of the community, playing an integral part in the day to day life of the people in the surrounding area.

If you would like to play a part in this work or are considering joining East Gate Church please see our  'Contact us' page. We would love to hear from you.