A Downtown Huntsville Congregation Since the Early 1800s
Central Presbyterian Church traces its origins to a meeting of the Cumberland Presbytery on April 7, 1812, when Elder Alexander Wilson represented Huntsville. Originally known as First Cumberland Presbyterian Church of Huntsville, the congregation grew with the early Alabama territory. The first building, a white frame structure, went up in 1828 on Greene Street between Holmes and Walker. A second sanctuary followed in 1845 at the corner of Lincoln and Randolph Streets, dedicated in 1854 by the Rev. Robert K. Donnell with four immense Corinthian columns and a cupola bell tower.
When that Doric structure was razed in 1899 to make room for a larger building, the architect designed the new one tall rather than wide to fit the existing lot. The result is the present Romanesque Revival Sanctuary, octagonal in shape and built largely from the original bricks. Irreplaceable Bavarian stained glass windows still fill the room with color. The cornerstone was laid by the Rev. Joseph W. Caldwell. Inside, the original pipe organ was replaced by a Baldwin electronic instrument in 1982, now housed in the Caldwell Chapel, and in 1999 the church installed an Allen Renaissance R-350 organ to mark its centennial.
Denominationally, Central has moved with the broader Reformed and Presbyterian family. The 1906 Cumberland reunion with the Presbyterian Church, USA, brought the name Central Presbyterian Church. Mergers in 1958 and 1983 aligned the church with the Presbyterian Church (USA), and in March 2007 the members voted to affiliate with the Evangelical Presbyterian Church (EPC), where Central remains today.
Sunday Mornings at the Cooper House
Sunday School classes for adults and children meet at 9:30 a.m., and worship begins at 10:30. The Pastor's Class gathers in the chapel for a mix of lecture and discussion through biblical books and themes. Upstairs in the Cooper House, the Young Adults and Friends class studies topical and devotional material over coffee and donuts. The Men's Class meets in the Freeman House, and the Women's Class gathers in the downstairs parlor of the Cooper House.
Worship itself takes place in the Cooper House at 405 Randolph Avenue, the property the church purchased in 2001 and renovated in 2010 into a dedicated ministry and event space that anchors many weekday programs. The service is livestreamed on YouTube and Facebook Live each Sunday at 10:30, with the full video archive on both platforms. Sermon audio is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and through the church's sermon audio page.
Children, Youth, and the Next Generation
Two Sunday School classes serve children: one for nursery through preschool and another for kindergarten through fifth grade. During the worship hour, children in kindergarten and older join their families for the start of the service and are then dismissed during the sermon for Children's Worship. A staffed nursery is provided throughout the hour for younger children. Sara McFaddin directs the children's choir program, and a monthly after-school Bible study for elementary children runs during the school year.
The Youth Ministry serves middle school and high school students together. On Sunday mornings at 9:30 the youth meet for Sunday School in the Youth Room, and on Sunday evenings from 5:00 to 7:00 the youth group gathers, typically together at the start of the evening and then splitting for age-appropriate events.
The Hawthorne Conservatory: Music, Dance, and Art
Housed in the Freeman House at 205 Lincoln Street and the Hawthorne Studio at 107 Lincoln, the Hawthorne Conservatory offers a Christian arts education for the wider Huntsville community. Music lessons cover piano, violin, guitar, voice, flute, bass, and ukulele, taught by a faculty that includes Robert Lubin (piano), Anna Linzey (violin and piano), Gabe Larose (guitar), Sara McFaddin (voice and piano), Josey Poppin (voice and piano), Jennifer Lindsay (flute), Emily Hively (piano), Cecily Moody (piano), Amanda Weiland (piano), and John Onder (guitar, bass, and ukulele).
Dance instruction runs from preschool beginner through adult, across ballet, jazz, tap, lyrical, and contemporary. Maggie Lamey, Annie Rankin, and Randal Saraceni teach alongside Linda Soule, who leads the dance program and founded Covenant Dancers in 1996 as a Christian dance academy. Jeannie Dickens teaches art. The Conservatory operates as an outreach of the church, with subsidized tuition and a faculty who view their work as a form of worship, drawing on Psalm 150 as the ministry's guiding passage.
Central Presbyterian Preschool
The Preschool program serves children from twelve weeks through Pre-K in a Mother's Morning Out format. Open to church families and to the wider community, the Preschool follows the philosophy of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church and complements Central's Christian Education ministry. Katelyn Smith directs the program, with the philosophy that children are best served when they play to learn, growing in confidence, self-esteem, and autonomy in a Christian environment.
Adult Ministries and Weekday Community
The Women's Ministry Team leads a Thursday Bible study from 10:00 to 11:00 a.m. in the Cooper House front parlor during the school year, along with quarterly events and an annual retreat. The men's ministry centers on the year-round Men's Sunday School class and a Wednesday Bible study and lunch led by Rev. Dr. Jenkins in the Cooper House during the school year, plus a monthly Young Men's Evening Bible Study that gathers at the Kishes' home.
The Prime Timers, the senior adult ministry, hosts a monthly luncheon on the second Thursday at 11:30 a.m. in the Cooper House, with featured presentations from local ministries and occasional outings to area performances and restaurants. Young Adults gather for shared meals, social events, and Sunday morning study throughout the year.
From Downtown to the Ends of the Earth
Central's mission work operates on three fronts. Locally the church supports the Downtown Rescue Mission, Child Evangelism Fellowship, the Fellowship of Christian Athletes in North Alabama, Lincoln Village Ministry, Lifeline Children's Services, the Huntsville Learning Center, Kairos of North Alabama, Presbyterian Home for Children, Second Mile Ministry, Vantage Leadership Initiative, The WellHouse, and Young Life Huntsville.
Regionally the church supports church planting in Alabama, Georgia, and Colorado, including Chelsea Presbyterian Church, Auburn Vineyard Church, Water Stone Church, and The Table Project, alongside campus ministries at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, Alabama A&M, Vanderbilt University, and LaRoche University.
Globally, Central partners with Paraclete Missions, Teach Beyond, EPC World Outreach, Trans World Radio, Wycliffe Bible Translators, Samaritan's Purse, Gideons International, and other missionaries and organizations serving in France, Scotland, Uganda, Costa Rica, the United Kingdom, and Asia. Several global workers are intentionally not listed publicly for security reasons.
The Central Office Daily Devotional
For members seeking a weekday rhythm of prayer, the Central Office devotional arrives by email Monday through Friday. Each day includes an invocation, readings from the Psalms, the Old Testament, the Gospels, and the New Testament, a guided prayer prompt, a song for reflection, and a benediction. The aim of the devotional is to pray God's Word back to Him and to see Christ as the fulfillment of all of Scripture, rather than to read through a set amount of content.
The Central Presbyterian Church Foundation
A separate Central Presbyterian Church Foundation operates as a perpetual funding source for ministries beyond the church's regular budget. The Foundation invests pooled resources and disburses them to local, national, and worldwide ministries aligned with the congregation's theological priorities, governed by a Session-elected Board of Directors, at least half of whom are ruling elders, and managed by investment professionals under a prudent-man-rule policy. Members may contribute cash gifts, marketable securities, real estate, charitable gift annuities, life insurance policies, pledges, or planned gifts through their estate. Giving to the church's general fund is handled online through Realm.
What Central Pres Believes
Central Presbyterian Church is a member congregation of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church. Members hold to a Reformed understanding of theology, an evangelistic understanding of the church's call to the lost, and a missional understanding of how the Christian faith is lived out day to day. The Session affirms the Westminster Confession of Faith and the EPC's Essentials of Our Faith, which confess one God in three Persons, the incarnation and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the saving work of the Holy Spirit, justification by faith alone, the unity of the visible church in the preached Word and the sacraments, the personal and bodily return of Christ, and the church's call to make disciples of all nations.
Who Leads Central
Rev. Dan Kish serves as Senior Pastor. A graduate of Grove City College and Reformed Theological Seminary, he joined the Central staff in January 2007 as Director of Youth Ministries before stepping into the senior pastor role. Jeremy Gaines leads the music ministry, with Robert Lubin as organist and pianist and Sara McFaddin as director of the children's choir. Meagan Kish directs Children's Ministry, with Torie McMillan as assistant director. The Hawthorne Conservatory is led by Michelle Bauer, who holds degrees from Middle Tennessee State University and Louisiana State University and has taught music for more than twenty-five years. Katelyn Smith directs the Preschool.
The Session, Board of Deacons, and Board of Trustees each include three rotating classes of elected members, partnering with the pastor in the governance and care of the congregation. Visitors are warmly invited to a Sunday morning at the Cooper House at 405 Randolph Avenue, with Sunday School at 9:30 and worship at 10:30, a staffed nursery for young children, and a livestream for those joining from home.