Downtown by History and Choice

First Presbyterian Church of Durham, North Carolina, was founded on New Year's Eve 1871 as the Durham Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. The congregation's first house of worship, a modest frame structure, stood on the site occupied by the present church. First Church, beginning in the late nineteenth century, established, funded, and staffed industrial missions near local textile and tobacco mills to become the "Mother Church" for three present day Presbyterian churches, and, recently, in association with other Presbyterian churches, to establish a Hispanic Presbyterian congregation. Abroad, First Church launched an ambitious foreign mission program and thereafter cared for refugees and embraced immigrants. First Presbyterian Church has been a welcoming church that has, through the circling years, endeavored to meet the challenge of adjusting to the contending forces of tradition and change as they have impacted and continue to impact worship, music, education, mission, and church government. This is the church's story.