Prior to Teen Challenge opening its new centre, Sunnybrae was called Sunnybrae Christian Centre; a centre for people with alcohol addiction problems.  On 1st January 1988 Gordon Cruden, a teenager whose life was on downward spiral through alcohol abuse, walked into a church and responded to the Christian message by turning his messed up life over to Jesus Christ.  He then became a resident at the Sunnybrae Christian Centre.  After finishing the programme at Sunybrae his journey took him to:
- M/V Anatasis, working on board a mercy ship traveling around developing countries of the world delivering physical, medical and spiritual aid.
- Mattersey Bible College where he finished the course and was ordained as a minister.
- Pastor of a church in Edinburgh and at the same time supporting himself financially by running a very successful business.
- Pastor of Cairnbulg Assembly of God church.
Having returned to the North East of Scotland to pastor the church at Cairnbulg Gordon was appalled and overwhelmed by the drug related deaths of so many people he grew up with.  The final straw came when he stood in to be a pallbearer at the funeral of someone he knew well and was shocked to see that one of the other pallbearers was the nine year old son of the deceased.

As a result, Gordon got together with Ben Ritchie, from the Solid Rock Cafe, and others, to set up a residential centre in the North East of Scotland to help young men recover from substance misuse problems.  Such was the percieved need for such a centre that many people from all over Scotland gave sacrificially and in a very short time it became possible to purchase the Sunnybrae from the Sunnybrae Christian Trust in 2002. On 24th March 2003 Teen Challenge Sunnybrae opened its doors to the first residents in an exciting new programme and the remarkable twist to this story is that Gordon Cruden now manages the centre where he was once a resident.