Our Values & Ethos
We hold these ideals to be most important to the ministry and mission of The Downtown Presbyterian Church.
- Belief in God’s love and in Christ’s ministry
- The desire to welcome and embrace everyone. No exceptions.
- Service to God, service to our neighbors
- God’s gift of creativity
We believe that every person is a beloved child of God.
Our welcome extends to everyone, whatever your economic circumstances, your faith background, your racial or ethnic identity, your sexual orientation or gender identity, or your political party affiliation.
As a diverse community, we seek to intentionally embody God’s radically inclusive and transformative love for everyone. With love and grace, we are called as a community to grow together as a voice for justice and peace – each as we are, with our unique human stories of joy and struggle.
Our Mission
Gathering in the heart of Nashville, we are a community of disciples of Jesus Christ. We seek the welfare of the city as we seek the kingdom of God. We are an historic church working to be a welcoming and inclusive congregation. Together we actively share God’s grace and love through worship, education, and service and through being an active voice in promoting justice and peace in our community and the world.
~ DPC Nashville, Mission Statement
Who We Are – Then & Now
We are a Downtown Church. Some regard this as a handicap. I look upon it as an asset. Give me a church where life is densest, and human need is greatest – not a church in some sequestered sylvan retreat, not a temple in some lonely solitude far removed from the walks of life and attended only by the children of privilege and leisure, but give me a church whose doorstep is on the pavement, against whose walls beat and lap the tides of labor, whose hymns mingle with the rattle of cars and the groans of traffic, whose seats are within easy reach of men falling under heavy burdens, and whose altars are hallowed by the publican’s prayer. God grant that this old church on the busiest corner of town may increasingly be this kind of church!
~ Rev. Dr. James I. Vance, on the One Hundredth Anniversary of the First Presbyterian Church of Nashville, 1914
