Richard Rieves, Memphis born and bred, has returned home to help Second Presbyterian plant a new church.

Rieves, originally ordained in the PCA, is now ministering in the EPC to plant Downtown Presbyterian Church. The will be conducting their first Sunday morning worship service this coming week – October 3, at their new location at 456 Tennessee Street. Service starts at 10:00AM and will be followed by a celebratory cookout.

From the church website, Pastor Rieves tells his story:

“To move toward a new church or a church at all is traumatic. “Dare I try, again? Dare I get my hopes up, again? Why will this church be any different?” The voices of “the faithful” telling us, “You really ought… You really should…,” ring in our head and hold us back. Hope diminishes as we realize we have made it this far without church, so why mess things up.

“Downtown Presbyterian is not the perfect church. It is not the place all your problems will be solved, but it is the place you can be skeptically hopeful. It is a place that is seeking to make a difference in downtown and our city by actually modeling what we preach, however imperfectly, by living out what Jesus teaches.

“A character in Walker Percy’s The Second Coming, says, “One might even become a Christian if there were few, if any Christians around.” We admit we, the church, have failed miserably, especially in Memphis. A cursory look at poverty, education, and crime reveal the disconnect between a city with more churches than any city in the world and a place Forbes magazine recently rated one of the most miserable cities to live.

“So we are a new church seeking to start, not with the world, but the church. We are looking in before we look out and we are finding the gospel, that message that says, “You are more messed up than you ever dare to admit, but more loved in Christ Jesus than you have ever dared to hope,” to truly be God’s power to change us into a radically different people and thus, a radical new community. The process is slow and bumpy, but that is real Christianity. Anyone can market perfection, but arriving somewhere in the ballpark takes a while.”

Learn more about the work of this church at their website at: http://www.downtownpres.com/