Our Mission

In response to the call of God through Christ, the mission of Altavista Presbyterian Church is to serve the Lord and proclaim the gospel through studying the Bible, regularly worshipping together, nurturing, respecting, valuing, and loving each other as children of God, faithfully witnessing to ourselves and others, and serving our community and the world.

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Our History

Altavista Presbyterian Church, established in 1910 by a commission of the Montgomery Presbytery, held its first services in what was then the new Methodist church, now St. Peter's Episcopal church. By 1913, the church had 21 members. It moved to the Baptist church and, in 1922, to Liberty Theater on lower Broad Street. The town's plans had called for a church on each corner of the block bound by Broad, Bedford, 10th and 11th Streets, but in 1925 the Presbyterians built a church below the Southern Railroad on a lot donated by R.L. Cummock.

It was a one-story red brick structure that looked like a Scottish kirk. It had a slate roof, crank-out leaded windows, and an austere sanctuary with plain white walls, a dark wood ceiling and crisscross oak timbers supported by corbels. On March 7, 1926, the congregation held its first service in the sanctuary.  

They held Sunday School in a large activity room in the back of the church. The area had a grid of brass pipes on the ceiling from which hung long, dark-green burlap curtains that were drawn for classes. Early in the ‘50s, the church added four permanent Sunday School rooms, a pastor’s study and a secretarial room and later, in 1958, a new educational building built by S.T. Jacobs.

Membership grew to 147, a result of the formation of “Fishers of Men,” an evangelist committee that visited Presbyterian-related town folk discovered in a town-wide religious census. The church began to participate on the Presbytery level. They hosted a Presbytery meeting of the newly formed Appomattox Presbytery, with 125 attendees fed in the new fellowship hall. Throughout the decade, an increase in membership and Presbytery involvement continued.
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Altavista Presbyterian has continued its growth in spirit and in numbers since the mid-nineteen hundreds. The members remained faithful through the turbulent years of Civil Rights, political upheavals, and the Cold War. They were steadfast in their loyalty to the denomination during major changes in church government, such as the reconstruction of the General Assembly, Synods and Presbyteries. Members played an integral part in developing the church’s spiritual growth as well as increasing membership and building expansion. The church continues to remain faithful and to praise God for his many blessings and for each other.