First Presbyterian Church Temple, Texas

Excerpt from:  A Portrait of Faith:Our Scrapbook, 125 Years of Saints and Sinners at First Presbyterian Church, Temple Texas 1881-2006

Christianity is a faith shared in stories. In addition to the stories of the Old and New testaments, we have our personal stories. Our stories tell of the many people who have influenced us throughout our faith journey, teaching us, loving us, and guiding us along the way.

I invite you to find a comfortable chair and sit for a while as you consider some of the stories that were lived out in this particular faith community, First Presbyterian Church. In this book we will take a look at the last one hundred twenty-five years of ministry of the oldest congregation in Temple. By reflecting on the lives of those who have gone before us, we will look at our faith through the eyes and ears and voices of the saints who have gone before us and of those who work and serve today.

The story begins back in 1880 before Temple was even a town. The Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railroad sent workers to the settlement called Temple Junction. A number of Presbyterian families lived in the area of Birdsdale near the site of the 1839 Bird Creek Indian battle. If you look for it today you’ll be standing on the Sammons Golf Course.

When the directors of the Santa Fe Railroad offered free town lots to every church willing to erect a building, these Presbyterian families came forward.

The timing was just right. Central Texas Presbytery met to organize a church in Temple in the fall of the year 1881. And so it was that the first church building erected in the newly established town of Temple, Texas was the Temple Presbyterian Church, a frame building at the corner of what is now North First Street and Barton Avenue.

The first 24 members came from the Belton Presbyterian Church. R. M Tuttle, a columnist for the Texas Presbyterian writes that:

. . .the organizing services were very well attended by polite and attentive people and the outlook for the church is unusually promising especially in view of the fact that the material from which the organization has been effected is exceptionally good. (Texas Presbyterian, Sept. 1881)

Tuttle continues: How commendable is this little band not to wait to do some great thing, but to be willing and ready, like that noble hearted woman in the gospel story to do testimony that I have seen it verified again and again that if there be grace in their hearts, no people are so poor as not to be able to erect a suitable house of worship for themselves. “Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might.” “He that is faithful in that which is least, is faithful also in much.” Poor, weak and homeless churches, “go and do likewise.”

The following tapestry weaves together threads of conversations overheard from session minutes, newsletters and church bulletins in the early years of our life together:

• It didn’t take long for the youth of the church to make their presence known. In 1894 the Young People’s Society present their constitution and bylaws to the Session and they were approved.
• The year was 1915 and the session passed a resolution that any member who was known to persistently participate in the Modern Dance in any way shape or form or fashion “Shall be disqualified for membership in the Choir, for office or teacher in the Sunday School and for any office or position in any organization or society in the church.”
• In 1919 a committee was appointed to find out what was causing the stoves in the church to smoke.

As we move ahead to the year 1929, Michael MarYosip is called to be the pastor. MarYosip has come to this country from Persia and brings to this little community his great passion for the gospel, and as you can imagine, no small amount of mysterious intrigue. Each week MarYosip printed a bulletin that outlined the morning’s service and that offered words of advice for faithful living.

MarYosip was not afraid to speak of politics. One week he wrote about Hitler, telling the story of a group of ministers in Germany who sent a petition to Hitler in which with polite and emphatic words they told him they could not obey him. At that time it was the only group that had openly defied Hitler. MarYosip writes: “They are ready to go to prison for their faith.” Our pastor could not have known in those days that many of these clergymen would also die for their faith.

In May of 1937, MarYosip includes a curious message in the bulletin.

A month ago every member of this church received a letter from his or her church. It was a kindly letter. It had no command in it. It was a dignified letter as all church letters should be. It was a brief letter and it was written so simply that everyone could understand it. In answer to the letter the church would know what her members think about their church. The letter was so important that the church waited for it with anxiety. A stamped envelope was enclosed in the letter. But to this hour less that half of those who received it have made an answer to it. A letter from the church of Christ to you. What will you do about it? Let us hope that you treat other letters better that you do those of our Savior’s church. If you do not, then may God have mercy on you and on this church.

It is said that MarYosip was an outstanding preacher. This excerpt from his book, Why I Believe the Bible, gives us a glimpse of this faithful servant:

The life and moral teaching of Jesus has worked powerfully in the story of civilization, and is still at work. How simple are His teachings about the highest and holiest things. How sincere is the sound of His words about God, man, and the doing of the will of God. He penetrates to the very center of the great problems that have engaged the thoughts of many and He does it with a simplicity and understanding that mark Him as the greatest of thinkers. He is calm in the midst of panic. He speaks and acts with the confidence of one who knows the truth, arousing his enemies to bitter antagonism and silencing them by his simple but penetrating answers.

It may be said with all sincerity and truth that physically and materially Jesus has done more for the world than any other man in the world. His life and teachings, and most of all His death on the cross and victory over death have made Him, the way, the truth and the life to all who would know God.

Rev. Dr. MarYosip's ministry continued into the middle of the 20th century.  Rev. Harold Odum was called to be the pastor of our congregtaion in 1951 and during his ministry he helped to begin a building project that would add our educational wing.  Rev. Odum's book, Well I'll Be - - - Our Surprising God! Hints and Hunches is a collection of letters, quotes, prayers and verses that were important to him during his life.

Rev.Odum writes: There is a great hunger abroad today - a hunger for realistic involvement with life, a hunger for meaning and purpose, a hunger for God.  The usual pursuits - money, security, fame, power, pleasure - even religion - have not satisfied people's needs.  We are dsienchanted.

This hunger provides a valuable opportunity for Christianity to be presnted as a vital relationship with a God who loves us, a living God who endows our existence with reality, authenticity and purpose.  A mind awake, a spirit alive, a will energized, a body harmonized - these are discoveries to be made.

As the years passed we saw many changes as we moved into the decades of the 50's and 60's. 

From the Session minutes we learn that:

In 1956 the red Hymn Book was published to replace the old hymnal.  (One young person who read this wisely said: "I thought the red hymnal was the old hymnal.")

In January of 1961 The Session voted that the church reaffirm the stand of the Temple’s Pastor’s Association in urging the City Commission to take the necessary steps to insure that businesses would be closed on Sunday in observance of the Sabbath.

In April of 1971 Rev. Wilson Keenan accepted a gift for the church from a member of one of the charter families of this congregation. The gift was the original communion set used in 1881.

Rev. Keenan spoke these words on that day: I thank God that we have not come to the place where the past has nothing to say to us. I pray God also that we will never come to the place (equally dangerous) where the past is all that speaks.

God assumed in generations to come, young people would look to their parent and say, “What is all of this about?” . . . “What is the Church all about? What does the Church have to say?” Youth then or now might say in a most sincere and questing way, “What does God have to do with life?” God in looking at those times said to his people: “When you assemble yourselves together in the rituals of your faith. . . when you come together in the name of your God. . . then when your children ask what it is all about, tell them.

Dr. Ralph E. Person was to follow Rev. Keenan as our next pastor, coming to our congregation with a wealth of experience. Previously he served as secretary for the Student Christian Movement of India, as a campus minister at the University of Texas and as an associate professor at Columbia Theological Seminary. Dr. Person was a gifted teacher and his doctoral dissertation: The Mode of Theological Decision Making at the Early Ecumenical Councils addressed the earliest controversies of the Christian faith, reminding us even as we look back on 125 years that the history of our faith began centuries before our little church was established.

I was called as pastor in the fall of 1998 and the years have flown by. In visiting with my colleagues, Harold Odom, Wilson Keenan and Ralph Person, I have noticed a bond that we all share. The love that each pastor has had for the people of this congregation cannot be fully described. The holy ground that we tread as we share in your joys and sorrows is sacred space indeed. How grateful I am for my time with you. You have taught me a great deal about what it means to be a child of God.

And so one hundred and twenty five years have passed. Twelve and a half decades of worship and service. One hundred and twenty five years of celebrating communion and weddings and baptisms, a century and a quarter of sharing our sorrows and mourning the passing of our loved ones. The congregation of First Presbyterian Church, Temple Texas has many stories to tell and these stories center around our common faith in Jesus Christ.

Maryosip said more than 60 years ago: the deep influence of Jesus Christ is quietly spreading. . . living in the hearts of millions, and his teachings and the cross shall bring transformation and peace to a great host.

As the oldest church in Temple we are called to be a part of this powerful influence, to be a part of the work of Jesus Christ bringing transformation and peace to a broken and hurting world.

And so on this journey of faith, let us be on our way. Let us proclaim God’s mercy and grace and love in our time and in this place so that others might follow after us and add their stories to ours.

May the Peace of Christ be with you,                                                             Margaret