First Christian Church of McGregor (Disciples of Christ)

The plaque says the church split in 1897 over "basic principles." According to the historian John Mark Hicks, drawing on W. K. Holman's 1900 account, the Christian Church of McGregor, organized August 25, 1883, divided on September 23, 1897, into this First Christian Church and a Church of Christ. Rebaptism was a central issue: whether people immersed without believing baptism brings forgiveness could be members. The conservatives changed the locks and kept the progressives out. The progressives sued, and the Supreme Court of Texas ultimately decided in their favor.

What the plaque says

First Christian Church of McGregor (Disciples of Christ) 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)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Mother Neff State Park — 8.0 mi
  A Leon River park that grew from six acres Isabella Neff left the state in her 1921 will, where Civilian Conservation Corps Company 817 built a stone tower, a pavilion and roads in the 1930s.
• Waco Mammoth National Monument — 18 mi
  A bone bed on the Bosque River where a nursery herd of at least 19 Columbian mammoths was trapped and drowned by floodwater 65,000 to 72,000 years ago, left in place under a dig shelter.
• Dr Pepper Museum — 18 mi
  The 1906 bottling plant of the Artesian Manufacturing and Bottling Company, built where Dr Pepper outgrew a Waco drugstore soda fountain, now the Dr Pepper Museum.
• Armstrong Browning Library — 18 mi
  A three-story Italian Renaissance library on the Baylor campus built to hold A. J. Armstrong's Browning collection, dedicated in December 1951 and now, by its own account, the world's largest of Browning material.

More markers nearby

• McGregor — steps away
• McGregor Mirror — 0.2 mi
• First Baptist Church of McGregor — 0.2 mi
• The Grange in Texas — 2.0 mi