First Presbyterian Church is the largest Presbyterian church in
Mississippi and a flagship and founding congregation of the
Presbyterian Church in America. Its communicant membership is over 2,500. With 3,100 members, it has become the largest
Presbyterian congregation in
Mississippi and one of the largest in the
United States. It has played a significant role in the establishment of the
Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), and the congregation has remained one of the flagship congregations of that denomination. Its pastor at the time of the PCA's establishment in 1973, Rev Donald Patterson, was Chairman of the Steering Committee for a Continuing Presbyterian Church and preached at the inaugural PCA General Assembly. The church played a significant role of establishing the Winter Theological Institution in 1962, which became
Reformed Theological Seminary. In the 1950s and 1960s, FPC
excluded black people from the sanctuary. The church published a statement of repentance over this in 2016. The minister and some members of FPC were very influential in the 1992 formation of Mission Mississippi, an ecumenical racial reconciliation initiative. Soon afterwards, however, there was a backlash against the organization within this congregation, dues to the church's historic resistance to the
civil rights movement.
Ligon Duncan served as Senior Pastor from 1996 to 2013. ==Doctrine==