In 1825, inspired by a missionary priest, Macon residents founded the mother church of the Episcopal Diocese of Atlanta: Christ Church.

Two centuries later, Christ Church celebrated its birthday with a service featuring The Right Rev. Rob Wright. Bicentennial events stretch into late 2025 as the congregation of 700 affirms its presence as a forward-looking parish that values its heritage, liturgy, and outreach to Macon and Middle Georgia.

The Rev. Lot Jones “saw fragments back in 1825, and he gathered them up,” Wright said at the Feb. 27 service. “He could have never imagined this congregation, yet here we are. He’d had no idea we’d still be here, but here we are—gathered up fragments, gathering fragments and presenting them to the Lord, believing with all our heart that Jesus can make more out of those fragments than we can.”

According to the church history, Christ Church was founded on March 5, 1825, in response to Jones’s missionary visit the previous year. It was the first church founded in the growing settlement on the banks of the Ocmulgee River, which had itself only been formally chartered in 1823.

Christ Church soon joined the two-year-old Diocese of Georgia. When the Diocese of Atlanta was formed in 1909, it was organized at a convention held at Christ Church, making Christ Church the oldest church in the diocese and the Mother Church of the Diocese of Atlanta. Several current members of Christ Church are descendants of members on the original seating chart.

“Just think about that for a moment: two centuries through lack and sickness, through famine, war and chattel slavery that disfigured both the slave and the enslaver, through rebuilding and renewing, through deluges and droughts, through the transitions of leadership lay and ordained from John Quincy Adams, our sixth president, to Donald Trump, our 47th president,” Wright said.

“Christ Church has been here in good days and not so good days, in births and deaths, in dividends and indebtedness, throughout all the vicissitudes of our common life. One thing is true: there is still much to give thanks to God for.”

The 300 attendees did exactly that in the prayers of the people: “We give you thanks for the faithful vision and steadfast courage of those who, two centuries ago, established this parish of Christ Church in Macon. For their dedication to the Gospel, their love of your Word and Sacraments, and their commitment to serving this community, we give thanks. Bless, we pray, this parish on its bicentennial. Renew in us the same spirit of faith and service that inspired our founders. Grant that we, like them, may be a beacon of your love, a haven for the weary, and a source of hope for the lost.”

Holy Supply Chain

Christ Church also was the first church in Macon (population 157,000, fourth largest metro area in Georgia). Over 200 years, the city has grown and spread around it, and the recent revitalization has drawn more people to live and work downtown.

In 1996, roughly 30% of storefronts were occupied and few apartments existed downtown, according to a Georgia Public Broadcasting report. Today, 84% of storefronts are occupied with locally owned and operated businesses and there are more than 750 lofts housing more than 1,000 residents. Christ Church is a beacon for serving the vulnerable.

A main example: The church started, hosts, and funds the serving of more than 9,000 meals through Weekend Lunch, a Christ Church ministry that the interfaith community supports through volunteer teams and donations. (The bicentennial service was held on a Thursday night so as many people across faiths could attend.)

“We really make a point of outreach,” said The Rev. Cynthia C. Knapp, who since 2016 has served as Christ Church’s 28th rector and second woman to serve in that role.

“We spend well over $100,000 on outreach every year, and our budget is a little over $1 million, so we’re essentially tithing outreach,” she added. “Each month, we feature a ministry of the month to give those ministries that are supported by the whole community in Macon a chance to shine. We write a very significant check to the ministries we support and—as or more important—have parishioners serving on the boards and volunteering at each of the ministries we support, so we as a parish family are working with other churches, synagogues and organizations. There’s so much need in Macon, we have really wanted to focus our efforts locally aside from our overseas mission support.”

Volunteer leadership and service represents one of many ways people can find a place in the Christ Church community, Knapp said.

“People today are often looking for a place to connect, a place to belong, and so we try to invite them to be a part of our family,” she said. “We’re strengthening the community and people’s faith individually, as well as trying to find new ways to take the church outside our doors—getting out there with our identity as the people of Christ Church and inviting people in.”

At the bicentennial service, Wright called Christ Church outreach “nothing less than a holy supply chain of the best stuff of life: interdependence, sacrifice, fellowship, compassion, love… Happy birthday for 200 years of service and worship. Thank you for helping Macon look a little bit more like Jesus’s vision for the world.”

The Glue of Lay Leadership

At the service, the tower chimes began chiming Westminster Quarters every hour after being restored in loving memory of John Francis Willingham, a Macon native who served as an usher, vestry member and chaired the building committee. As president of Willingham Sash and Door Company, he continued the manufacturing of architectural woodwork that his great grandfather founded in 1882 and used in historic churches and other buildings.

“Lay leadership was really the glue that held the church together,” Knapp said. “Clergy came and went, and sometimes were not there for a significant period, and the faithfulness of the laity is what kept Christ Church going. In the last couple of years especially, we’ve had so many lay people step up into roles of leadership and ministry.” Five members were recently commissioned as licensed lay ministers.

According to Christ Church historian Russ Henry, strong lay leadership helped Christ Church survive. Soon after its founding, Rev. Jones “up and left, and the church had not built a structure,” “They were meeting in public spaces and in people’s homes. Other denominations had begun to sprout up in town because not everyone wanted to affiliate with ‘that English church,’ so there was a real challenge and a sort of identity crisis for Christ Church, and they didn’t have a leader.

“That continued for about six years, an eternity at that stage in the church’s formation, and Christ Church dwindled to be a very small parish that was kept afloat by one member in particular, Dr. Ambrose Baber,” Henry added. “He arranged for visiting clergy to tend to the flock, and over time, they did a fundraising drive to pay a clergy person a working wage. It wasn’t until 1833 that our second rector arrived, and Christ Church experienced a revitalization of energy and strength. The church had very nearly closed its doors and folded if not for lay leaders who were able to persevere.”

A Christ Church member since 2001, Henry partnered with another longtime member to produce Sacred Reflections, a coffee table book about the church’s history. Architectural photographer Walter Elliott, who represents the latest of five generations of his family to attend Christ Church, contributed the book’s images.

The book chronicles the founding, growth and evolution of the church through stunning new photography alongside historical images. Christ Church also is known for its stained glass windows and the Fisk organ installed at the 175th anniversary in 2000. “Christ Church has a long history of being on the cutting edge in regard to having organs that are some of the best instruments available in their time,” Knapp pointed out. The organ supports an excellent choir and relatively new children’s choir school.

By showcasing both familiar and fresh perspectives, the Sacred Reflections anniversary publication invites deeper appreciation for the sanctity of Christ Church and its vibrant faith community.

“Planning for the whole year has been geared around trying to connect people to our place, to our history, and to our story and our identity and who we are,” Henry said. “I hope that that pays dividends into the future.”