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Our church was organized in 1926 by 65 dedicated people. Over the years, the congregation has grown to over 1,300 members. The first church building, known as "God's House by the Side of the Road," was a frame residence located at Main and Anthony. In 1941, it was moved, and the Chapel constructed. (See photos.) With the growth of the congregation, the Christian Education Building was erected in 1955. In 1963, the present Sanctuary was dedicated and an addition was constructed in 1979. New construction was completed in 2004 that added several classrooms, nurseries, fellowship and gathering spaces, and ministry spaces,
Our History
including a large hall with kitchen facilities, and additional parking. A church history book -- which describes God's faithfulness to us through the generations -- is available for purchase in the church office.
Our Mission
The First Presbyterian Glen Ellyn Mission Statement. Read on as Pastor Jerry takes us through the statement for a practical and theological read on each line :
TOGETHER - LED BY THE WORD AND SPIRIT - WE FOLLOW CHRIST'S CALL - LIVE IN LOVE - ENJOY GOD - BUILD COMMUNITY - TEACH THE FAITH - ANNOUNCE FORGIVENESS - TRANSFORM THE WORLD -
Together
Our new mission statement begins by gladly announcing that this is a statement of a people, not just a person. In Biblical terms the mission statement of each individual Christian has been predestined by our sovereign God — to be conformed to the image of His Son. But the mission statement of the people of God — the whole people — is different, though again in Biblical terms, it is often related to Christ, such as to be the body, bride, or brother of Christ.
Our mission statement is a declaration by the First Presbyterian Church of Glen Ellyn of who it is, what it believes to be its call, who is its Caller, and what it resolves to do. This statement is not an announcement that we have achieved these goals (no point in writing a mission statement after the mission is accomplished). It is a statement of the mission on which we are engaged. It is a statement of both destination and path with no claim to be at or even near the destination, only moving toward it — knowingly, gratefully, joyfully.
We do this together. God has called us to gather, so that together we hear and obey His call to us, together walk and work, together rejoice and sorrow along the way, together set out and, by God’s grace, together arrive at our destination.
Together we declare first that God has called us to gather together. God has made from the gathering of many persons a people — the First Presbyterian Church of Glen Ellyn — together.
Led by the Word and Spirit.
One is almost tempted to ask what else? Who else? Christians have always known that whatever was the mission to which God called them on whatever was the vision God set before them, they would be — need to be, want to be — Led by the Word and Spirit.
The Word of God — the Bible — is God’s act of divine self-revelation, revealing to us, calling other things, what it is God wills for us. It is our guide which never fails. It is our rule for future and life. What we need to/want to know the Scriptures reveal. We are to obey. Gladly.
The Spirit of God — the Holy Spirit — is God who, having inspired the writers of Scripture to write, guiding them all along the way, now illumines the readers of Scripture to understand what is written, guiding us all along the way.
The Word is the curriculum; the Spirit is the Teacher. The Word is the tool in the hands of the Master who forms us and reforms us. The Spirit guides and accompanies us on the mission, our map is the Word. The words of the Word are the voice of the Spirit. Do you read it? Do you hear him?
We follow Christ’s call.
This is the basic grammar of our new mission statement. We are the subject. Follow is the main verb. Christ’s call the object.
We recognize that God is dealing us thus. God created, redeems us, and provides for us. God does all this by His own will and power. Yet, wonderfully, God invites us to participate in His purposes in His world. God makes all the first and best moves; God now invites us to respond. God, through Christ, calls us. We respond by committing to follow.
Christ’s call is not only an invitation to work alongside Him, it is also to walk alongside Him. We participate in His purposes and we share life itself with Him. This is the most blessed part of the call — Christ invites our company. As the Christian faith teaches us — we are elected by God to both salvation and service.
Imagine again those at the seashore whom Christ called. The very same Christ, by His Spirit, calls us now to follow Him. We are His disciples — disciples defined as those who follow Christ’s call.
This is the basic grammar of our life together. We hear Christ’s call; we follow. Gladly.
Live In Love.
Live in love is the first of six parallel statements that form the center of our whole statement. Together they constitute the direction(s) of our obedience to Christ’s call which, led by his Word and Spirit, we commit to follow.
Live in love. It sounds like something teenagers want to do and our job as adults is to talk them out of it. But the language of love goes to the heart of Christian faith and practice. So we list it first.
Live in love is first because Jesus declares it to be greatest. The greatest commandment, Jesus teaches, is that we love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, strength and mind. And the second follows it, He teaches, that we love our neighbor as ourselves. These two commandments summarize all the law and the prophets. Jesus teaches. Love — do it.
Love — live in it, comes from this teaching. Know God’s love, trust God’s love, return God’s love, share God’s love. In short — live in God’s love.
These six statements are a contemporary version, a Presbyterian mission statement adopted a century ago called the Six Great Ends of the Church. That generation worded it this way — the mission of the church is “to exhibit the Kingdom of Heaven to the world.”
It was a summary statement calling the church to do all things in the love of God, for the love of God, because of the love of God. It reminded the church that Jesus taught his disciples that they are to love one another, and that in witnessing (exhibiting) that love, the world would know that we are his disciples.
Let our congregation be so reminded. Let the world know we are his disciples. Let us live in love.
Enjoy God.
At first reading Enjoy God sounds all too much contemporary, too light perhaps, maybe even a bit irreverent in its desire to be relevant. But Enjoy God is an old expression and very serious.
In the late 1640s, Scot Presbyterian theologians and pastors met with English Puritan divines at Westminster to establish the core theological confessions of British Christians. This was a serious gathering for the most grave of purposes in a very sobering time. Meeting over the course of a few years they composed the Westminster Standards — the Confessions, the Larger and the Shorter Catechisms, and the Directory for Worship.
The Catechisms begin with the most foundational questions and answers —
Q #1. What is the chief end of man?A. To glorify God and enjoy him forever.At the heart of our Reformed confession is the invitation to enjoy God. This became the language of Presbyterians for the next 450 years.
The First Presbyterian Church of Glen Ellyn seeks to enjoy God by practicing his presence corporately in worship each worship. We believe we have a covenant with God to meet him in worship each week — to adore, confess, thank, petition — to enjoy God.
And we seek to enjoy God by the glad daily reminder that God is with us, loving us, extending grace to us, fitting all things to his good purposes for us, and — most surprising of all — desires us and our attention that he may enjoy his creatures and we enjoy our God.
In all this we follow Christ who lived his life in constant companionship with his heavenly father and who for all eternity as the Son has enjoyed blessed communion with the Father and Spirit. We affirm that God has invited us into this blessed communion that his and our joy may be complete.
Enjoy God. This is the sweetest command, the most serious invitation, the greatest delight.
Build community.
Who could argue against it? Forming the fabric of the purposeful and prosperous lives we live are the relationships that unite us to one another. Nation and neighborhood, school and service group, associations for play, politics, and shared passions — all these are networks of networks that strengthen our public and personal lives. We’re for it too.
Build community, though, has a distinct and focused purpose for the followers of Christ. Each of us united to him, we are thus united to each other in him. We share common identity. Hearing the same Word, we offer the same obedience; guided by the same Spirit, we walk the same path. Community becomes both the by-product blessing of being united to Christ, and building it becomes the guided goal of our corporate concerns. We strive to build the community that Christ calls us to — mutual caring, shared joys and sorrows, necessary support in the joint effort to share God’s love and justice with all humanity.
We have been called out of the world to be formed together into the body of Christ and then sent back into it to do his bidding. We were from many peoples and now have been made into one people that we may share with all people the love of the one God.
The fellowship of the people of God is the community which Christ builds. Participating with Christ’s purposes for our well-being we willingly and gladly build up this fellowship so that all Christ’s people might find a welcoming community in which to live out all that Christ calls them and all of us to do.
Teach The Faith.
“And Jesus began to teach them, saying . . .” This phrase is found throughout the Gospels. Jesus made disciples by teaching them. In fact a disciple is another word for student, and Jesus was often called “Teacher.”
But don’t think of the classroom only or even primarily. Jesus taught his disciples to be like him, not just think like him. The classroom of Christ is the whole world interpreted through the whole Word.
To teach the faith is to teach another to observe all that Christ has commanded. This is the great commission. How does one make disciples? By baptizing them and teaching them to observe . . . To observe is to live obediently.
We teach the faith to our children and to those newly following Christ by baptizing them and then teaching them to live like Christ.
The curriculum for this instruction is the Scriptures and our teacher is the Spirit. The faith has a content, a set of beliefs and practices that form the core of what it is for a church or an individual to be a Christian — faithfully Christian.
Put another way, the Church has a faith without which she cannot live faithfully.
We teach that faith. Gladly and gratefully.
Announce Forgiveness.
An announcement is a declaration of something — an event, a time, a person — that already is. Birth announcements, marriage announcements, announcements of battle victories, grand openings, party announcements — all declare what now is what once was not.
The announcing of forgiveness is like all these. The event is the crucifixion of the Son sent by a loving Father whose Spirit now announces that this is the time of salvation — your sins are forgiven. It is the announcement of a birth and marriage, victory, grand opening and party, and more.
It is also therefore an invitation. The announcement of forgiveness invites each of us to gladly receive this announcement with a growing trust that God has loved us and provides for us all things, including salvation. The announcement of forgiveness invites humanity to cease hiding from God fearing that God holds all of our sins against us. The announcement of forgiveness invites humanity to turn toward God away from self in sincere confession and amendment of life to participate more and more fully in God’s love for us and all.
We announce forgiveness that our children, our neighbors, and our world might know of God’s great love for them. Announcing forgiveness is an early and central part of following Christ’s call.
We announce forgiveness.
Transform the World.
Really.
The First Presbyterian Church of Glen Ellyn is a particular gathering—a congregating part—of the Church of Jesus Christ . The Church of Jesus Christ by His invitation and by His command is on His mission. His mission is to transform the world.
Christ is Lord of All Creation, the Sovereign of the Nations, the Savior of the World. Those who follow Him participate in His work of transforming—renewing, reforming, indeed, vivifying—all that belongs to Him. All belongs to Him. "There is," as it has been said, "not one square inch of all creation over which Jesus does not say, 'Mine.'"
We participate in Christ’s transforming work by giving attention to all matters of creation, especially human endeavor—art, science, government, education, technology, family. In this we work and pray that we might be fit instruments of His transforming work.
Indeed, to transform the world.
Really?
Really!
Seeking justice, loving mercy, walking humbly with God
This is the only direct quote of the Scriptures in our new mission statement. We use it as an accumulative statement and place it deliberately at the end.
In some sense it serves as a summary of all that is said earlier in the statement. In its original context Micah the prophet used it this same way—seeking justice, loving mercy, walking humbly with God—as a summary of all that God required of us. It serves well either by standing on its own or, as we place it here, as an authoritative review of all the preceding.
Taken in reverse order it suggests a progression. Walking humbly with our God suggests the essential, prior, central relationship of all believers and all congregations. It is a reference to evangelism and the new found relationship of trust which the disciple places in the Savior. Loving mercy names the acts of compassion as central to the mission of those who love the Savior and walk by His commands to love neighbor. Seeking justice is based on and moves beyond the relationship we have with God and neighbor to the whole of creation—government, economics, human society, environment—restoring and advancing God’s purposes for all God has made.
Taken in order the three-part statement reminds us of the difficulty of obedience and is concessive in nature. Richard J. Neuhaus writes, “when you do not know what justice requires, then at least love mercy, and when you discover, as you inevitably will, how difficult is such love then, at the very least, walk humbly with God.”
May God help to seek justice, love mercy and walk humbly with Him.
Come walk with us . . . Come walk with God
It’s an invitation. Sincere and passionate.
We follow Christ’s call, not alone, but together. Christ has called many of us — over a thousand of us in this congregation — to follow him together. Christ is not done calling more.
Still he walks by the seashore and says “Come, follow me.” Still he says to the taxgatherer “Come, follow me.” Still he walks into our places of work and play, our schools and soccer fields and stores. Still he walks down our streets and when he speaks he still says “Come, follow me”.
Having answered that call, we who walk with him now extend his invitation to all we meet, calling out Come walk with us . . . Come walk with God.
Someone — a parent, friend, neighbor — first extended an invitation to us. We remain grateful to them. Now we extend that same invitation to others: Come walk with us . . . Come walk with God.
It is an invitation. Sincere and passionate.
The First Presbyterian Church of Glen Ellyn is a congregation of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). We are an American denomination of 2.5 million members, connected to Reformed and Presbyterian churches world wide. We are:
* Apostolic: believing the truth taught by the apostles and prophets as found in the Scripture, and teaching them to every believer.
* Catholic: connecting to all of God’s people everywhere, in all times, and binding ourselves to them.
* Evangelical: trusting Christ as the Savior and Lord of the world, and inviting everyone to place whole hearted trust in him.
* Reformed: knowing the Sovereign Creator and Redeemer of all things, and living every part of our lives acknowledging God. As a people with purpose we are committed to the Great Ends of the Church:
* the proclamation of the gospel for the salvation of humankind,
* the shelter, nurture, and spiritual fellowship of the children of God,
* the maintenance of divine worship,
* the preservation of the truth,
* the promotion of social righteousness,
* the exhibition of the Kingdom of Heaven to the world.
“Together we see our sins as God reveals them; together we know God's forgiveness. This is neither boasting nor complaining. This is to say that though we are not yet all God intends us to be, to us God is everything.” ~ Jerry
Our Denomination
