In 1896, Nashville was still a small town, and there wasn’t much on the east side across the river. So a small group of people met in East Nashville to talk about starting a new church, and on October 17th of 1897 they had their first official gathering as a church in a building on the corner of 17th and Fatherland, with Pastor James Tomskissick as the preacher. They met and they grew as the city grew around them, and then in 1908 they built their own church building, which is still there today.
Then in 1957 there was a fire that damaged that building significantly. That building would eventually be restored, but in the interim the church decided to purchase some land on Old Hickory blvd in Madison to build a new place to worship. Today we still gather in that building. In 2007 the Lord enabled us to add an educational wing connected to that building. So we’ve been in the current location for 62 of our 122 years.
God has worked through many wonderful people over the years to cause a ripple effect for His kingdom in Nashville.
OUR STORY
Our Beliefs
JESUS
Jesus is the eternal Son of God…who was Immanuel (God with us), the image of the invisible God (Colossians 1:15), the exact representation of His (God’s)being (Heb. 1:3) and the Word who became flesh (John 1:1,14). We believe He holds all authority in heaven and on earth (Matt. 28:18). We believe salvation and eternal life can be found ONLY in Jesus (John 14:6; Acts 4:12). We believe when Jesus came to earth He was fully God and fully man. He was born of His mother Mary who was a virgin at the time of His conception up to the time He was born. We believe He lived a sinless life, and died on the cross as an atoning sacrifice for our sins and was literally/bodily raised from the dead. We believe He is seated at the right hand of God the Father and will return some day. He is our High Priest and Advocate with the Father (1 Tim. 2:5; Heb. 7 & 8), and is the head of His body the Church (Col. 1:18).
THE BIBLE
The Bible (the Old and New Testament Scriptures) is the uniquely inspired Word of God (2 Tim. 3:14-17; 2 Peter 1:16-21). God created everything and every person, and He also communicated who He is to us through creation and more specifically in the Bible (and most specifically in Jesus). The Bible is the rule of faith and practice for Christians. We affirm that Scripture is the authoritative revelation from God by which we know God’s will and the authority of Jesus. We are striving to stress what we believe the Bible clearly stresses and allow freedom in what we believe are matters of opinion. We are striving to become better students of the Word of God. We approach Scripture with absolute confidence that it is God’s word in its entirety. We also approach this Holy Word with humility knowing that there are some things too marvelous for us to understand and knowing we may be flawed in our interpretation at times. But we are pressing on to understand it better as we endeavor to use sound principles of Biblical interpretation.
SALVATION
Salvation is found only in Jesus Christ. We are saved by God’s grace through faith (Eph. 2:8-10). When a person precisely crosses over from being “lost” to “saved” is God’s call! That said, we believe God has commanded how we may come under His umbrella of grace: believe and place our trust in Jesus Christ for salvation and in Him alone (John 1:12; 3:16; 20:31; Romans 10:10); repent of sins by turning away from sins and turning to Christ (Acts 2:38); confessing Jesus as Lord (Romans 10:9,10; Matt. 10:32,33); being baptized for the forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38), to have our sins washed away (Acts 22:16), to be clothed with Christ (3:27). We practice believers’ baptism by immersion as we believe this mode represents the meaning of the word and was the practice of the New Testament church. We also believe immersion captures the picture of being buried and raised with Christ (Romans 6:1-4). We urge people to remember that if God’s grace was removed from the equation, all of these actions (believing, repenting, confessing and being baptized) would be absolutely worthless. We simply believe these are the normative responses of anyone in the New Testament who wanted to be a follower of Jesus. Therefore, we should respond in the same way. We do not have the authority to call anyone a brother/sister in Christ who has not followed through with these commands from the Lord. Consequently, before anyone is received into the church family as a member of MCC, they must express their faith in Jesus by showing a desire to turn away from sin (repentance), and confessing Him as Lord and being immersed into Him for the forgiveness of sins and the gift of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38).
GOD
God is the one and only God. We believe He is One being in three persons – God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. He is the source of all creation (Gen. 1:1; John 1:1,2), which He sustains (Col. 1:17) and is currently redeeming mankind and all of creation (Romans 8:19-22). We believe God is all that Scripture teaches about Him.
THE HOLY SPIRIT
The Holy Spirit is actively working in the world seeking to glorify God the Son – Jesus Christ (John 16:14). We believe He convicts people of sin, righteousness and judgment to come (John 16:5-11). The Holy Spirit indwells believers individually (John 14:17) and corporately in the Church. He develops within each Christian a pure heart which results a growing Christ-like character expressed in private and public conduct and action. We believe God gives us the gift of the Holy Spirit normally in our baptism into Christ (Acts 2:38). The Holy Spirit then gives each Christian a gift whereby we are to serve the body of Christ (1 Cor. 12:4-7).
THE CHURCH
The Church is the body of Christ on earth, the community of believers throughout the world (1 Cor. 12:27). Upon surrender to Christ (in faith, repentance, confession and baptism) a person enters into a family of believers called the Church. We believe God intended the church to be for the glory of Jesus Christ (Eph. 1:12), a royal priesthood and a holy nation (1 Peter 2:9). We believe the church is a community of God’s ambassadors holding out the gospel of Jesus to the world (2 Cor. 5:20) with the goal of leading all people to become disciples of Jesus (Matt. 28:18-20). In our understanding, Disciples are those who are centering their lives around Jesus, His teachings and His mission. We believe the church should hold to the things the very first Christians believed to be vital for their growth: the Apostles teaching, the fellowship, the breaking of bread (communion) and prayer. We also believe Christians should follow the example of the New Testament Church by worshiping together the first day of every week (Acts 20:7 & 1 Cor. 16:1,2) in honor of the resurrection of Jesus. Involvement in the church is needed for encouragement and accountability (Hebrews 10:24,25).
JESUS’ RETURN
The return of Jesus is going to happen. When? God alone knows. Our responsibility is not to attempt to determine when that will be. We are responsible to be ready whenever that day comes in our lifetime or not. We believe He will return and bring with Him those who’ve already died in Him (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18). The details of how all of this will come about and when are in God’s very capable hands. At the return of Jesus we believe all of humanity will be divided into two groups: those who are saved and those who are lost. The saved will experience an eternity of fellowship with God and the saved in the new heavens and new earth. The lost will experience eternal separation from God (1 Cor. 15:51-58; 1 John 3:2; Revelation 21:1-5; 2 Thess. 1:8-10; Rev. 20:11-15).
OUR DENOMINATION
We’re not affiliated with any denominational structure or hierarchy. We have a theological heritage with the Restoration Movement, also known as Independent Christian Churches and Churches of Christ. The Restoration Movement began in the early 19th Century as a response to the disunity that had grown over time among protestant churches. We believe it’s unhelpful to embrace extra-biblical creeds as tests of fellowship. Instead we try to stand on the scriptures alone as the foundation for faith and practice, and we try to model our church after the ones described in the New Testament.