Scott was raised Presbyterian but eagerly joined the Wesleyan Methodist Church in 1827, engaging in lay ministry work and becoming a Sunday school teacher.

Thus, due to the controversy, "one of his important and successful strategies was to attract influential friends and fellow workers", including Count Mathias Rosenblad and Lord Bloomfield.

[13] Scott's influence was present in other ways as well: the biographical dictionary Svenskt Biografiskt Lexikon describes Scott's "emphasis on the individual's momentary conversion and adherence to new forms of organization, as well as his connection with the work of the temperance movement" as "decisive for the entire development of the later Free Church movement," stating that, "after the Reformation, hardly any single foreigner has had as great an impact on the transformation of Sweden's religious structure.

The building, with seating for over one thousand,[13] was designed by Scottish architect Robert Blackwood and a revised version of the plans was submitted by Fredrik Blom.

[3] Newspapers Aftonbladet, Tidning för Stora Kopparbergs län, and Dagligt Allehanda [sv] wrote articles critical of him, adding to the tension.

In 1841, he traveled to the United States on a fundraising trip at the request of Robert Baird and the American Bible Society in an attempt to pay off the church's debt after construction.

After a riot in the church on Palm Sunday in which Scott's life was threatened, the Governor of Stockholm Mauritz Axel Lewenhaupt [sv] banned him from preaching in Swedish.

[12] The church building remained abandoned until 1851 when preacher Petrus Magnus Elmblad [sv] began using it; his preaching in Swedish was allowed to continue.

The same year, Scott was contacted in London by Per Palmqvist, brother of pioneer Baptist missionary Gustaf Palmquist, to learn about the Methodists' Sunday schools.

[3] Scott continued to work as a traveling preacher taking three-year assignments in cities including Aberdeen, Liverpool, and Newcastle-on-Tyne.