The Cumberland Presbyterian Church
Our Past, Our Present, Our Potential

How do people choose churches today? Most people today don’t choose a church home because of the label that it wears (though a lot of us choose our cars, our clothes, and our coffee that way!) Most of us go where we feel welcomed, accepted, and wanted. We go where we feel it’s worth our time because we are learning something that encourages and challenges us to be better people. We go because we feel like what the church stands for fits who we are and we buy into its vision. Most importantly, we go because the church enables us to hear from God, and grow in our relationship with Him.

The Cumberland Presbyterian Church was started by people who had a similar understanding of what the church is all about. These next few paragraphs describe how the Cumberland Presbyterian Church started and grew, and where it hopes to go over the next few years.

During the late 18 th century, immediately following the American Revolution, our country started moving westward. As families moved westward, they encountered some of the same problems that people moving into new communities today experience. There were no settled towns, and they often had to “drive a long way” to get what they needed. This was particularly true in meeting their spiritual needs. They had moved from an area where it seemed like there was a church on every street corner to a place where there were no churches.

Life was hard on the frontier. People worked long hard hours, and many barely got by. Crops could fail. Disease and sickness hit hard and many died. Many parents lost their children to sicknesses that today are taken care of easily because of the medical advances we have made. Pioneer life was not only hard, but full of danger as well. Sure, God was on the frontier, and undoubtedly those pioneers talked to Him often. But it sure helped to have other people around too who would encourage you to remember that He loved you, even when your crops were failing, or your children were sick. And it was particularly comforting to these pioneers to know that their children who died went to heaven to be with the Lord. Particularly, they needed the assurance that God had not abandoned them, and that they were not alone. They also needed other people in the form of a spiritual community

Some of the people who moved westward were ministers of all different kinds of Christian backgrounds. They saw the needs of the people and wanted to help them. These Baptists, Methodists, and Presbyterians decided to put aside some of their different understandings of the Bible to unite around what they agreed on in Christ in order to meet the needs of the people. These pioneer ministers formed the first “drive in churches” called “camp meetings” (The pioneers “drove in” their covered wagons and camped out for days, listening to messages that helped them connect with the Lord, as well as connecting with each other) Some of these meetings had 25000-30,000 people at them. These meetings took place largely in the areas of Kentucky and Tennessee, hence the name “ Cumberland,” comes from the surrounding geographic area. Thousands of people made new commitments to become followers of Christ at these meetings, and many gave their lives to Him fully. People started getting their spiritual needs met, and the frontier “woke up” as God’s Spirit moved across it in a big way.

The establishment who stayed back east, particularly the Presbyterians, started getting nervous. They decided that they needed to clamp down on these frontier ministers (four of them in particular) before things really got out of hand. Here’s what they were thinking:

“What’s going on and who do these upstarts think they are?” Why, they can’t promise these people that their children who died will be in heaven. Furthermore, you can’t tell anyone that they can trust in Christ and that makes them acceptable to God. What if God won’t accept them? And everybody knows that you can’t have a real church cooperating with Baptists and Methodists because the differences are just too great! And to top it all off, you need a seminary degree from us to be able to tell people about God’s love for us in Christ!. Maybe that’s the problem. These upstarts don’t have the proper education or the credentials. We can certainly put a stop to that!”

And so they tried to stop what God was doing through these ministers on the frontier. For six years they used the machinery of organized religion to try to silence these four ministers. And for the entire six years, these four ministers waited patiently, hoping things would change and that the fruit of their work would speak for itself. Finally, after many years of trying to work within the system, they left to form a new church which would be more open to people’s needs. On February 4, 1810, after an entire night of heart-searching prayer to be sure they were doing what God wanted, they decided to form the Cumberland Presbyterian Church.

In the years following, the new church grew and couldn’t be stopped. History repeated itself as many thousands of people came to know Christ and His love through the ministry of the Cumberland Presbyterians. New churches were established for these new believers. And, when enough new churches were established in a particular area, regional associations called presbyteries were formed. By “connecting” with each other, these churches could be more effective in “reaching and teaching” more people. As the number of presbyteries grew, another “management level” called the synod (groups of presbyteries) was organized to keep the work growing.. And finally, a top level called the General Assembly was added. The General Assembly would be a gathering of the all the church (via elected representatives chosen by the presbyteries) together to hear God and decide how to respond to issues that affect the whole church. This system of presbyteries, synods, and General Assembly still exists today. It is the foundation for the government of the present day Cumberland Presbyterian Church.

As it focused on the priority of reaching people for Christ, the church grew strong. It continued to push forward with the frontier. Educational institutions were founded. A ministry to Native Americans was started among the Choctaw with education playing a key role. The church reached out to people of all racial backgrounds with the Good News. Cumberland Presbyterian churches in the Southern states were some of first to “integrate” with slave and master often worshipping together. This certainly paved the way for peaceful abolition of the practice of slavery in our nation, and would lay a foundation for healing after the Civil War.

The ministry of the church did not stop with the Civil War. Though it was the darkest time in our nation’s history, with more American blood shed than in any other war, the church stayed together. Though bitter differences separated the country, the Cumberland Presbyterian Church stayed united. After the Civil War, it was able to play a significant peacemaking role to a divided country. Its doors remained open for both Northerners and Southerners, as well as to the former slaves.

Following the Civil War, the church continued to grow. By 1900, the Cumberland Presbyterian Church had nearly 2,000,000 members, hundreds of churches, and nearly 40 schools. Mission work was taking place in several countries around the world, most notably among the Chinese. Today, we continue a significant ministry in Hong Kong, as well as being involved in Colombia and Peru in South America, Tanzania, East Africa, as well as Eastern and Central Asia. In addition, we also have an exploding cross-cultural work in the US among Hispanics, Koreans, and the Sudanese.

In 1906, a slight majority voted to merge with what was then the General Presbyterian Church. But a significant number decided not to merge, and formed the core for what is the Cumberland Presbyterian Church today.

Presently, the Cumberland Presbyterian Church is headquartered in Memphis Tennessee, and has about 700 + churches nationwide. Though we are a small denomination (about 100,000 worldwide) we have a big vision, that we believe can be accomplished with the help of the Lord. We believe that God has a specific and unique mission for us.

Part of our vision is to establish new churches during the first decade of this new millennium. Between the years 2000-2010, we would like to start 75 new churches. We believe that this is a challenging but achievable goal for us. With the United States having the third largest non-churched population in the world, the need is apparent.

People still have spiritual needs like they did on the frontier. They still need the confidence and assurance that comes from knowing God personally. They still need a place where they can go and be encouraged spiritually by a community in the midst of life’s problems, pressures, and traumas. They still need to be a part of something that is bigger than they are that gives life meaning and purpose.

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