Our Identity: St. James Presbyterian Church in 2010 photo taken by Warren Johnson

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Our Neighborhood

We are located on the north side of Chicago, Illinois, USA.
In the 946 square miles that make up Illinois' Cook County there are about 5.3 million people.
Over 2.8 million of them live within the City of Chicago.
St James Presbyterian Church is located in the West Ridge neighborhood of Chicago (also known as West Rogers Park or Northtown). (For the history of this neighborhood go here.)

Chicago Weather Forecast, IL (60645)

Our neighborhood became part of the city of Chicago in 1893.
By the 1920s when St. James was founded, the people in the immediate neighborhood were predominantly German surnamed.
Today the neighborhood has a high concentration of Indian and Pakistani persons and businesses, a growing Hispanic population, and a large Jewish community.

Our Congregation

Our congregation is made up of persons from several ethnicities and language groups.
We are a small congregation in numbers and eager for new friends to join us. Our Sunday service at 10:30 am usually includes about 30 persons.
Theologically we are a liberal/progressive congregation trying to be fully engaged in our local community.
We are, in the jargon of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), a More Light Church.
For a much longer statement of what we believe, go here.

Our Worship Style

To view or print some of our worship bulletins, go here.
We are fortunate to have several talented musicians in our congregation including published composers of music for worship. We have a volunteer choir that leads us in worship regularly. We appreciate spirited yet serious music leadership in our worship.
We include our children in worship and have special classes for younger learners. We also have a room suitable for the care of very young children.
Our service follows a traditional order of worship that would be familiar to persons with experience in most mainstream Christian traditions. But we are not concerned with serious dressing up for worship or with formal clothes. Our services most always include laughter and occasionally tears. Our attempt is to take our faith seriously but not to take ourselves too seriously.
We believe that our metaphors for God should reflect all the variety of gender, race, and language God is using to communicate with us. We are uncomfortable, however, with the removal of all aspects of gender and the specifics of embodiment from descriptions of God. In other words, to us God is never an it but always a living personable entity. In current theological jargon, God is always thou. Sometimes a mother, sometimes a father but always a great companion seeking relationship and offering and receiving love.
We believe that descriptions of people of faith should be fully inclusive of all the variety possible within the human condition.

Our Congregation's History

After a canvass made during the winter of 1925 and the spring of 1926 by members of the German Evangelical Synod of North America, it was determined that the Western and Devon area was home to a large number of persons with a heritage in the German Evangelical denomination who did not have a convenient church home.

In 1926, that denomination's Home Mission Board purchased a lot at the corner of Rockwell and Albion and contracted with the Rev. Alfred F. Schemmer as an organizing 1925 Model T Touring Car minister, a service was held in the display room of the Ford Sales Company at the south-west corner of Arthur and Western on Sunday September 26, 1926 at 2:30 in the afternoon. About 125 persons attended from the city's other German Evangelical Churches. At the service, an offering of $40.00 was collected and given to the Rev. Schemmer to rent a space for a temporary place of worship.

The following week Schemmer rented a store at 2644 Pratt Avenue and on Sunday October 3, 1926, the first worship service of what would become St. James was held with 8 or 10 adults present and 13 children in the Sunday school.

St. James Evangelical Church

The meetings of the unnamed mission continued into the next year until St. James Evangelical Church was officially organized on April 22, 1927. Also in that year the denomination dropped the word German from its name to become the Evangelical Synod of North America (sometimes called the Evangelical Lutheran Church).

The owner of the store at 2644 Pratt Avenue was eventually able to rent his store for more money and in the early part of 1928 the congregation moved to 6433 N. California to a larger rented space.

St. James United Church in 1934 Members marched from 6433 N. California on September 15, 1929 to the corner of Rockwell and Albion for the groundbreaking service of the building we now know as the "Sanctuary Wing." As they marched they sang hymns among them "Jesus Loves Me," "Onward Christian Soldiers," and "The Church's One Foundation is Jesus Christ Her Lord."

Ninety-eight days later on December 22, 1929, dedication services for the not quite completed building were held and the congregation's first sermon in the new space was entitled "A Church for Christmas."

In 1934 the Evangelical Synod of North America merged with the Reformed Church in the United States becoming the Evangelical & Reformed Church.

St. James United Church

During the Great Depression, the congregation at Rockwell and Albion merged with North Town Presbyterian Church. The Presbyterian congregation had been organized for only a few years and had not built a church nor did it own any property. This new congregation was a member of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America. On January 8, 1935, at the congregation's annual meeting the congregation voted to change its name to St. James United Church.

On Sunday May 27, 1956 after several years of rapid growth and a Sunday School enrollment of 285 students, The congregation dedicated its "New Parish Building" now called the "Education Wing."

In 1957, the Evangelical and Reformed Church merged with the Congregational Christian Churches becoming the United Church of Christ (UCC).

In 1958, the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America merged with the United Presbyterian Church of North America becoming the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. (UPCUSA).

St. James United Presbyterian Church

The pastors serving St. James until 1959 were from the Evangelical Synod of North America or its successors. In that year, the church began to be served by Presbyterian pastors. At a congregational meeting on November 30, 1964, the church determined to change its name again this time to St. James United Presbyterian Church. For official purposes this is still the name of our church although we usually shorten it just to St. James Presbyterian Church.

PC(USA) Seal In 1983, the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. (UPCUSA) merged with the Presbyterian Church in the United States becoming the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).

In recent years, St. James has been recognized by the denomination as a Peacemaking Church. In the 1990s, we joined with other Presbyterian congregations in the Covenant Network committing ourselves to building "a church as generous and just as God's grace." And in December 2001, We declared ourselves a More Light Church by affirming that “Following the risen Christ, and seeking to make the Church a true community of hospitality, the mission of More Light Presbyterians is the full participation of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender people of faith in the life, ministry, and witness of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)."

In 2003, several members of St. James were involved in peaceful protests against the U.S. government's invasion of Iraq. We understood all of these actions to be logical extensions of the call of the gospel.

Our confirmation students study a longer version of this history that includes a brief history of its predecessor denominations. You may read it here.

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