About Us

The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has approximately 2.4 million members, 11,100 congregations and 14,000 ordained and active ministers. Presbyterians trace their history to the 16th century and the Protestant Reformation. Our heritage, and much of what we believe, began with the French lawyer John Calvin (1509-1564), whose writings crystallized much of the Reformed thinking that came before him.

First Presbyterian Church of Commerce, Texas

In 1880 worshipers of several denominations in the "little village of Commerce, who during the 1870’s had held services in the small log school house in the 1500 block of today's Pecan Street, completed a Union Church building on land donated by Mr. and Mrs. Marshall Wren at the southeast corner of Washington and Live Oak streets, site of today's Jones Funeral Home.  For several years separate small Baptist, Methodist, and Disciples of Christ congregations shared this building.  It was here in November of 1888 that a group of seventeen charter members organized and led by the Reverend J.C. Grow, "the pastor for part of his time at Sulphur Springs," as commissioner for the Paris Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church in the United States (known also in those days as the Southern Presbyterian Church) united to form a congregation for the First Presbyterian Church of Commerce.  Commerce at the time was a small village of approximately eight hundred people and had been incorporated only three years.

In 1892, after the Methodists had moved to a new building of their own Dr. Debos Taylor, dentist and ordained Presbyterian Minister, and elder Henry C. Barker, leading hardware and implement merchant in Commerce, bought the Union Church building, paying $200 to each of the four churches.  Construction began on a new building for the Presbyterian Church on Church Street.  Having outgrown the old building on Church Street, in 1912 the congregation began construction of the present brick building on the corner of Monroe and Caddo streets.  This was completed in 1913. 

Presbyterian Church USA History

The earliest Christian church consisted of Jews in the first century who had known Jesus and heard his teachings. It gradually grew and spread from the Middle East to other parts of the world, though not without controversy and hardship among its supporters.

During the 4th century, after more than 300 years of persecution under various Roman emperors, the church became established as a political as well as a spiritual power under the Emperor Constantine. Theological and political disagreements, however, served to widen the rift between members of the eastern (Greek-speaking) and western (Latin-speaking) branches of the church. Eventually the western portions of Europe came under the religious and political authority of the Roman Catholic Church. Eastern Europe and parts of Asia came under the authority of the Eastern Orthodox Church.
In Western Europe, the authority of the Roman Catholic Church remained largely unquestioned until the Renaissance in the 15th century. The invention of the printing press in Germany around 1440 made it possible for common people to have access to printed materials including the Bible. This, in turn, enabled many to discover religious thinkers who had begun to question the authority of the Roman Catholic Church. One such figure, Martin Luther, a German priest and professor, started the movement known as the Protestant Reformation when he posted a list of 95 grievances against the Roman Catholic Church on a church door in Wittenberg, Germany in 1517. Some 20 years later, a French/Swiss theologian, John Calvin, further refined the reformers' new way of thinking about the nature of God and God's relationship with humanity in what came to be known as Reformed theology. John Knox, a Scotsman who studied with Calvin in Geneva, Switzerland, took Calvin's teachings back to Scotland. Other Reformed communities developed in England, Holland and France. The Presbyterian Church traces its ancestry back primarily to Scotland and England.

Presbyterians have featured prominently in United States history. The Rev. Francis Makemie, who arrived in the U.S. from Ireland in 1683, helped to organize the first American Presbytery at Philadelphia in 1706. In 1726, the Rev. William Tennent founded a ministerial 'log college' in Pennsylvania. Twenty years later, the College of New Jersey (now known as Princeton University) was established. Other Presbyterian ministers, such as the Rev. Jonathan Edwards and the Rev. Gilbert Tennent, were driving forces in the so-called "Great Awakening," a revivalist movement in the early 18th century. One of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, the Rev. John Witherspoon, was a Presbyterian minister and the president of Princeton University from 1768-1793.

The Presbyterian Church in the United States has split and parts have reunited several times. Currently the largest group is the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), which has its national offices in Louisville, Ky. It was formed in 1983 as a result of reunion between the Presbyterian Church in the U.S. (PCUS), the so-called "southern branch," and the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. (UPCUSA), the so-called "northern branch." Other Presbyterian churches in the United States include: the Presbyterian Church in America, the Cumberland Presbyterian Church and the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church.

For more information regarding the Presbyterian faith, please visit www.pcusa.org.

Portions of the above information were taken from the Presbyterian Church USA website.

The Seal of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

The seal of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is a registered trademark. The seal is comprised of the symbol, the basic components of which are cross, scripture, a descending dove at the upper part of the cross, and flames on either side of the lower part of the cross, and the name of the denomination, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), encircles the symbol. It was designed by Malcolm Grear and Associates.

The Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

The Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) consists of several parts. The first volume is the Book of Confessions which contains historical statements of what we as a church believe.  The second consisting of the Form of Government, Directory for Worship, and Rules of Discipline is called the Book of Order.