First Christian Church of McGregor (Disciples of Christ)

Duane's take

The way the official marker tells it, here's the story of the First Christian Church of McGregor, and I'm Duane, passing it along to you. Four families. That's where this whole thing begins.

Four families gathered out at a place called Comanche Springs sometime in the 1870s and formed themselves a Christian church. Their first pastor was the Reverend W. L.

Harrison, and however modest those beginnings might have looked, those four families were planting something that intended to last. Now, a railroad town has a way of pulling people toward it, and in 1883 the members made their move to the new railroad town of McGregor. They didn't waste any time getting settled, either.

By 1884 they had built a church right on Main Street. Main Street. Not a side road, not a back lot.

Main Street, which tells you something about where these folks expected to stand in the life of that community. By 1897 there were eighty members. Eighty.

That's a congregation with some weight to it. But here's where the road gets a little rocky. That same year, 1897, the Christian church split over basic principles.

Now the marker doesn't spell out every detail of what those principles were, and maybe that's just as well. What it does tell us is that one group retained the property, and by 1899 that congregation had become the First Christian Church of McGregor. They held that Main Street ground.

Then in 1907 they erected a new structure right there on the same site. Generation building on generation, same address, new walls. The story keeps moving forward from there.

In 1990 the church employed its first female pastor. And through all of it, from those four families at Comanche Springs to this day, the church has remained active in missionary work, community service, and worship, rooted, as the marker puts it, in the traditions of the founders. Four families started something.

Turns out they started something that knew exactly how to keep going.

What the marker says

Four families formed a Christian church in nearby Comanche Springs in the 1870s, with the Rev. W. L. Harrison as first pastor. In 1883 members moved to the new railroad town of McGregor and built a church on Main Street in 1884. There were 80 members in 1897 when the Christian church split over basic principles; one group retained the property and became the First Christian Church of McGregor in 1899. A new structure was erected on the Main Street site in 1907. The church employed its first female pastor in 1990. The church remains active in missionary work, community service, and worship, rooted in the traditions of the founders. (1998)