Church History



	Historical Highlights ------------------------------------------------------------------------ First Christian Church, Montgomery, Alabama In 1898, 28 members united to form a Christian church that met for about a year in a music hall before disbanding. Following a series of meetings at the city auditorium in 1908, 21 persons reorganized to form the Central Christian Church. This time the congregation remained together despite the lack of a permanent home. During 1911 and 1912, the congregation held six tent meetings at various locations. It also met inside the YMCA, the Air Dome, the County Court House and the Odd Fellows Hall. In January 1914, the congregation bought a lot and built its first small church at Sayre Street and Jeff Davis Avenue. Worship services were held in a completed chapel; some Sunday school classes met in a partially finished space under the house. When the congregation outgrew that facility in 1921, they bought a wooden house at Perry and High Streets. To make it usable, extensive remodeling took place. The remodeled house was to be a temporary home, but "temporary" stretched out for eighteen years. When the Bible School doubled in attendance, the need for meeting space required an addition to the structure. The Congregation began a building fund in the late 1930's. Before the fund grew to any extent, the wooden building burned. Through the help of our national church, the construction of a new building was begun in July 1939. With the occupancy of the building at Perry and High, the congregation changed its name to First Christian Church. In 1982, the congregation voted to relocate. The property at 1705 Taylor Road was secured the following year. Groundbreaking for the new building occurred on September 13, 1987 and was occupied on November 20, 1988. Additional Christian Education space and a new administrative space were added in 2001. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Denomination's History The Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) is the first Protestant movement founded on American soil, yet it is uniquely equipped to live up to a declaration that it is "A Church for Today." The denomination was born in the 1800s, and continues to be influenced by its founding ideals of informality, openness and diversity. The Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) grew out of two movements that sprang up almost simultaneously in western Pennsylvania and Kentucky -- movements that were backlashes against the rigid denominationalism of the early 1800s. Thomas and Alexander Campbell, a Scottish Presbyterian father and son in Pennsylvania, rebelled against the dogmatic sectarianism that kept members of different denominations -- and even factions within the same denomination -- from taking the Lord's Supper together. Barton W. Stone in Kentucky, also a Presbyterian, objected to the use of creeds as tests of "rightness" of belief, feeling that such statements dealt with nonessentials and were a cause of disunity. "Christians," the name adopted by Stone's movement, represented what he felt to be a shedding of denominational tags in favor of a scriptural and inclusive term. Campbell had similar reasons for settling on "Disciples of Christ" but he felt the term "Disciples" less presumptuous than "Christians." The aims and practices of the two groups were similar, and the Campbell and Stone movements merged quite naturally in 1832 after about a quarter of a century of separate development. Many of the Stone congregations were in parts of the country where there were few Disciples and some gradually related instead to a body that was one of the predecessors to the United Church of Christ. The founders of the Christian Church hoped to restore Christian unity by returning to simple New Testament practices. But the church found that even this led to division. Some believed in a restrictive interpretation of the Scriptures. Others were more permissive. One group which opposed practices not specifically authorized by the New Testament, such as instrumental music in the church and organized missionary activity, gradually pulled away. That group finally was listed separately in the 1906 federal religious census as the "Churches of Christ." (Some Disciples congregations still bear the name "Church of Christ" also.) Another conservative group remained with the Disciples but began a separation in 1926 over what it felt were too liberal membership policies on the mission field. More than 40 years later (1967-69) some 3,000 of those congregations formally withdrew as the Disciples restructured. They refer to themselves as the Christian Churches and Churches of Christ. The Disciples have a long heritage of openness to other Christian traditions -- actually having come into existence as sort of a19th century protest movement against denominational exclusiveness. Disciples helped organize the National and World Councils of Churches. The denomination also contributed the first lay president of the National Council (1960-63) -- Indiana industrialist J. Irwin Miller. The Rev. Paul A. Crow Jr., retired president of the Council on Christian Unity, was first general secretary of the Consultation on Church Union, which is striving for visible unity among nine U.S. churches. The Disciples are the fifth church body to approve the covenanting plan which stresses shared worship life, mutual recognition of ministers, and shared evangelism and justice ministries. In 1989, the Disciples and the United Church of Christ declared that "a relationship of full communion now exists between our two churches." The ecumenical partnership rests on five pillars of acceptance and cooperation: a common confession of Christ; mutual recognition of members; common celebration of the Lord's Supper/Holy Communion; mutual recognition and reconciliation of ordained ministries; and common commitment to mission. An early expression of that partnership came in July 1993, when the General Assembly and the General Synod held their first common gathering in St. Louis. The decision-making bodies will meet again in 2001. Joint work between the Disciples' Division of Overseas Ministries and the United Church Board for World Ministries dates from 1967. World mission for both churches is now carried out by the Common Global Ministries Board, established in 1995. Some 180 persons hold overseas appointments in 45 countries on the churches' behalf. In keeping with their ecumenical mission, the Disciples have reached out worldwide to more than 20 countries to establish churches. Most are now part of united Protestant bodies or are negotiating toward such unions within their lands. Operating ecumenically, Disciples personnel or funds work in more than 60 countries outside North America. In the wider ecumenical movement, Disciples have held theological conversations with the Roman Catholic Church since 1967. Conversations with the Russian Orthodox Church and the World Alliance of Reformed Churches began in 1987. The Disciples Vision, Mission, Imperative and Covenant statement calls the communion to be a faithful, growing church that demonstrates true community, deep Christian spirituality and a passion for justice. The church is identified with the Protestant "mainstream" and is widely involved in social and other concerns. Disciples have supported vigorously world and national programs of education, agricultural assistance, racial reconciliation, care of the developmentally disabled and aid to victims of war and calamity. The denomination now counts nearly 850,000 members in the United States and Canada. Numerically, the strength of the Disciples of Christ runs in a broad arc that sweeps from Ohio and Kentucky through the Midwest and down into Oklahoma and Texas. Information provided by the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) Webpage.