Beliefs

Our beliefs follow the standards of the Presbyterian Church of America, which can be found here.

Purpose

“Giving the Gospel Away … for the Joy of His Glory”

Meeting Times

Sunday School: 9:30 am-10:30 am

Sunday Morning Worship: 10:30 am -12:00 pm

Sunday Evening Worship (1st , 2nd, and 3rd Sundays): 5:00 pm – 6:00 pm

NOTE:  Nursery is available

Vision

Our culture finds it helpful when communities explain “what they’re all about.” For a local church, this expression is both simple and complex. From the simple perspective, the church’s global vision is: “to make disciples of Christ, who live for his return” (Mt 28:18-20; Rv 22:10-21).

From the complex perspective, a particular church always needs to localize this global vision. Three phrases provide complimentary angles to view our localized global vision: mission, message, and ministry. Under mission we deal with who we’re called to impact and why. Under message, we note the particular information proclaimed in this mission. Under ministry, we discuss how and where our mission and message are applied.

Our Mission is to bring the gospel to our community that they and we might enjoy the transformative results of new life in Jesus Christ.
While a memory of Christ remains, for many a credible experience of new life in Christ has been replaced by traditions promoting self-effort for self-improvement. Instead of the new God-glorifying life finding our best joy in him, we practice self-glorifying lives filled with unfulfilling “good” works.
As we (re) discover the way new life in Christ works, we enjoy the transformative results that give God glory: growing love for him and others. It is this transformed new life we offer to our community. In Christ we are transformed from anxious wanderers journeying towards death, to joyful children of God journeying with Jesus Christ toward eternal glory with God.

Our Message is the good news that Jesus Christ has ended our captivity to Satan/Sin/Death, and freed us to the new life of glory and joy in God.

Most of us in our community have some experience with church. We know about Jesus, sin, and salvation. We believe what we’ve been told: God made us for something significant. Yet what we’ve been told about what this significance is, and how to achieve it, isn’t working. Trying to live good lives that love others, we keep failing, hurting others and being hurt.

Some of us are caught up in trying to find joy in good works that don’t seem to help others or ourselves. Some of us have given up on Jesus and the church, pursing a different vision of life we hope will yield good for us and others. Some of us are quietly despairing, finding no relief from the hurts in our relationships. Life seems futile.

Yet our souls cry out that there is meaning to things; that significance can be found; that we can have a fulfilled life that enjoys peace with God and others. This is our church’s message: Jesus restores us to a fulfilled life fitted to God’s purpose for us. We’re committed to becoming a people who learn how to live lives that are truly fulfilling, lives that glorify and enjoy God. We’re committed to helping others discover the same for their lives.

Our Ministry is to practice the things the Spirit promises to use to bring about lives transformed by this message.

The Bible presents a simple model for us to follow: the ordinary means of grace ministry, including: instruments, contexts, and relationships.

• Instruments of Grace: God ordinarily works through three ordinary instruments: the Bible (1Th 2:13), prayer (Rom 10:13; Acts 2:42), and the sacraments (baptism, 1Pt 3:21-22; and the Lord’s Supper, 1Co 10:16).
  
• Contexts of Grace: The Spirit uses these instruments of grace to grow us in Christ, in three contexts:
  • Worship (personal, Ps 119:147-148; Mk 1:35; family, Dt 6:4-7; Ps 78:4; and corporate, Col 3:16; Heb 10:24-25),
  • Discipleship (Mt 28:19-20; Acts 19:9-10; 2Ti 2:1-7; Eph 4:11-12), and
  • Witness (Mt 28:19-20; Acts 1:8; 2:46-47; 8:5; 1Th 4:4-5a).
    
• Relationships of Grace: These contexts of grace are lived out in three relationships in which we love God and love others:
  • Relationship within our families (Eph 5:25-6:4; 2Ti 3:14-15),
  • Relationship within our church (Ps 68:5; Heb 13:7, 17; 1Jo 3:23-24),
  • Relationship within our community (Lk 10:29-37; 2Co 12:9b-10).
    

The ordinary means of grace ministry results in our learning to live by faith:

• Mercy/repentance: The Spirit show us where we are rebelling (sins) against God (Acts 20:32; Jas 1:21). We’re given repentance by which we increasingly put this old life to death (2Co 7:9-10).
• Grace/faith: The Spirit also show us how Jesus fixes our rebellion (Rom 7:21-8:1). We’re given faith through which we continue to grow in Christlikeness (1Jo 3:21-23; Heb 11:6).
• Glory: Living by faith, we grow in our restored purpose: growing in the obedience of love that reflects God’s perfections (1Pt 1:8; 1Jo 5:2-5).
• Joy: This restored purpose includes the increasing experience of lives fulfilled and satisfied in being God’s children (Jh 15:8-11; Jude 1:24).
• Hope: This growing experience of joy in God’s glory in us produces hope that fuels our living by faith (Rom 15:3; Heb 11:1).

Our Maturing in Christ is the endgame of our church’s mission, message, and ministry. We want to become a people with lives that:

• Are on mission, on message, and in ministry in all we think and choose;
• Are growing in the habits of living by faith though the ordinary means of grace;
• Are morally focused, family faithful, church devoted, and community committed.

In the end, this localized expression of the church’s global vision is not that complex. We hope you find it insightful, influencing, and inviting.

Historical Overview

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.  Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen. (Ephesians 3:14-21).

First Presbyterian Church of Montgomery started in 1821 when a group of like-minded believers began to worship together. With their Baptist and Methodist brothers and sisters, they shared a public facility in the frontier town of Montgomery, each congregation meeting for their own worship, and yet sharing a common vision for seeing Christ rule their lives in their new hometown.

In 1824, our Baptists brothers put up their first building – six months after we put up ours! (Our Methodist brothers relaxed, took their time, and didn’t put up their first building until the 1880’s.) Accordingly, following the civility of southern values, First Baptist and First Methodist gracefully allowed us to refer to ourselves as First Church, Montgomery. First Presbyterian’s ministry grew from there.

In the 1880’s the black members of our church expressed their desire for a separate church, closer to where they lived. Frankly, it was just a bit too burdensome traveling on foot to get to worship, etc. Our church agreed and planted her first daughter church for those members. In the early part of the 20th century, another group of our members, living in the new suburb of Cloverdale, asked for their own church for similar reasons. And while at first this wasn’t supported, in time it was and in God’s merciful providence our second daughter church was established, Trinity Presbyterian. In the ensuing years, more Presbyterian churches were planted in and around Montgomery. Each descends from the original First Church.

In the 1970’s, after helping to start our current denomination (Presbyterian Church in America), First Church began to experience difficulties, and then decline. To be sure, this was a common experience of many churches in that era, but it was particularly hard for many in Montgomery, both members and non-members, for whom olde First was a part of their history, their heritage.

After decades of seeking God’s leading, in 1999 the elders of First proposed to the congregation that the church seek to sell their downtown property and move to a new location for a re-birth of the ministry. At the same time, God was giving a renewed vision to our sister church, First Baptist, for reaching the downtown community. A blessed providence followed and First Presbyterian sold their buildings to First Baptist. Out of difficult circumstances, God’s kingdom expanded.

Moving to the new location in 2000, the continuing congregation recommitted themselves to seeing the ministry of the gospel restored at First Presbyterian. With a new building erected and newer members joining, things looked up. Yet the fullness of renewal hoped for did not materialize. It was as if there were some spiritual forces stopping First from moving forward.

In 2008, the elders determined to seek the help and advice of fellow elders from a sister PCA church in Birmingham, Briarwood PCA. The congregation followed their elders’ lead and, in 2009, First Presbyterian Church of Montgomery began its participation in the renewal ministry of “Embers to a Flame”. Built upon the church renewal paradigm expressed in Revelation 2:5, this process involves review and renewal using ten biblical strategies for re-establishing a spiritually healthy church.

Yet this too was slow to launch.  It was not until 2016 that God determined to touch the hearts of the congregation at First Presbyterian Church.  In the fall of that year, the leadership drafted and approved a Resolution of Repentance.  In 2017, after much prayer, the members of the congregation personally signed the resolution, which now hangs in the fellowship hall entry of our church for all to see. 

Renewal began to take hold, and a younger congregation began to grow in the midst of the older. As with all churches in our community, in 2020 COVID-19 introduced a pause in First Presbyterian’s ministry. These circumstances led into a season of prayer for God’s leading to what was the next step in the church’s ministry of the gospel to family, friends, neighbors, and strangers. 

Presented with an opportunity to swap properties with a sister church, in the summer of 2020 First Presbyterian moved back towards its downtown roots to its current Arden Rd/Atlanta Hwy location.  With all of our existing members welcoming the move, our church has begun to experience new growth in its present location.  As we continue to refocus on the core of worship, discipleship, and witness, First Presbyterian Church is grateful to God for returning us to our roots.

The gospel tradition has been a part of Montgomery from its beginning. In these unusual times, familiarity with this good news is yielding disregard and, increasingly, abandonment of this one essential truth. Yet God’s love for his people, through His Son’s life-death-resurrection, is still the only sure and certain hope for Montgomery. We’re grateful to still be here, offering all the various communities that make up Montgomery this wonderful news of the Savior who restores true glory and joy to life.

Click HERE for a brief history of the PCA Denomination

Icons made by Freepik from www.flaticon.com