NEW COVENANT CHRISTIAN CHURCH "Building CommUnity Inside and Out" ﷯OUR HISTORY Before the Civil War, Negroes in Nashville, whether free or slave, attended church and participated in both communion and baptismal services alongside whites. In 1849 the total membership of the Christian Church in Nashville numbered 546 people. Approximately half of these individuals were listed in the church registry as “Colored.” During one of his visits to the city’s “Colored Christian Sunday School,” Alexander Campbell, founder of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), observed the following about the Disciples fellowship in Nashville: “There is much more attention paid to the moral and spiritual culture of the Colored Brethren than I have seen elsewhere.” In 1859, under the leadership of Elder Peter Lowery, a Negro Sunday School in Nashville numbering some 200 pupils was constituted as a new Christian Church. This new church was built in West Nashville, on land belonging to General William G. Harding, and was known as Grapevine Church. The first Negro congregation of the Christian Church in Tennessee, Grapevine later moved to Seventh Avenue, South, holding services in an old brick house that belonged to Elder Lowery. Grapevine moved again, to the corner of Vine Street and Crawford Avenue, where it gathered from 1866 to 1881. During this time the fellowship changed its name to Second Christian Church, before eventually moving to Gay Street and re-christening itself Gay Street Christian Church. Foremost among the ministerial leaders at Gay Street Christian was Elder Preston Taylor, a visionary pastor, educator and entrepreneur universally acknowledged as one of the early black heroes of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). Elder Taylor arrived in Nashville around 1884 and by the early years of the 20th century he had become one of Nashville’s most influential black business and religious leaders. He married Georgia Gordon, one of the original Fisk Jubilee Singers. Mrs. Taylor died in 1913 and Elder Taylor later married Ida D. Mallory. In 1887, Elder Taylor purchased thirty-seven acres of land near “Buttermilk Ridge” at Elm Hill Pike and Spence Lane. Upon this land in 1888, he established Nashville’s second oldest cemetery for blacks, Greenwood. In that same year he established Taylor Funeral Company. After serving Gay Street from 1884 to 1888, Elder Taylor organized Lea Avenue Christian Church at 709 Lea Avenue in 1891. According to a report published in a 1903 edition of the Gospel Plea, “Elder Taylor is adding a fine auditorium to Lea Avenue Christian Church. When finished it will be the finest church in that part of the city.” It was also during his pastorate at Lea Avenue that Elder Taylor felt called to create a national movement of the Colored brethren. Specifically, he saw the need for the development of church leadership, training and employment opportunities, including a forum for fellowship and the exchange of practices and ideas among the various agencies and auxiliaries of the church. To realize this vision Elder Taylor convened 41 representatives from 14 states at Lea Avenue Christian Church the week of August 5, 1917, to establish the National Christian Missionary Convention. Another prominent leader among early black Disciples in Tennessee was Elder R.C. Maloy, who was ordained by Elder Taylor on July 15, 1917. Elder Maloy served Gay Street Christian Church until 1933. During the decades that followed Gay Street and Lea Avenue Christian churches merged and became Gay-Lea Christian Church. In 1955 Elder H.C. Poston, a local builder, led the combined congregation in the construction of a new sanctuary at 2201 Osage Street in North Nashville. The building was officially dedicated in 1957. The congregation changed its name from Gay-Lea to New Covenant Christian Church in 2002, midway through the tenure of Elder William E. Crowder, Jr., who served as pastor of the church from 1995 to 2009. During this time New Covenant also received a $3.4 million grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to create Disciples Village, a 52-unit apartment complex that has been providing safe, affordable housing for older adults in North Nashville since 2003. The church paid off the mortgage of its property at 2201 Osage Street in 2006. Today, under the leadership of the Rev. Dr. Judy D. Cummings, the church’s first female senior pastor, New Covenant continues, as its mission and vision statements attest, to live into the fullness of the promise of God by serving as “an oasis of wholeness, building community inside and out.” Since Dr. Cummings’ arrival in September of 2010 the congregation has glorified God through ministries of healing and justice, both in the neighborhood surrounding the church and throughout Nashville and Davidson County "Where God is glorified & people are edified!"

Worship Times

Sundays

 

9 am Sunday School

10 am Worship Service

 

 

Wednesdays

 

11:30 am - Classic Saints Bible Study @ NCCC

6 pm - Bible Study @ NCCC

Contact Us

New Covenant Christian Church

2201 Osage Street, Nashville, TN 37208

Phone: 615.320.1590 | Fax: 615.320.3103

Email: newcovenantnashville@gmail.com