Church of Christ (Temple Lot)

Church of Christ (Temple Lot) belongs to the Latter Day Saint movement family of churches.

Governance: congregational.

A Latter Day Saint body, NOT a Stone-Campbell Church of Christ. Its name is a trap for any name-based classifier.

The small Latter Day Saint body that holds the Independence, Missouri lot dedicated for the temple in 1831 — and is no relation to the Churches of Christ.

Heritage

Among the scattered congregations after Joseph Smith's death in 1844, members in Illinois led by Granville Hedrick organized separately in 1863, holding to the church's original 1830 name, Church of Christ. Returning to Independence, Missouri in 1867, they purchased the ground Joseph Smith had dedicated in 1831 for a temple — the Temple Lot from which the body takes its common name — and have held it since.

Theological family

Latter Day Saint by self-description, of a conservative early cast: the Bible and the Book of Mormon as Scripture, the 1830 organization as the pattern, and rejection of later developments including baptism for the dead, plural marriage, and the office of church president. Trinitarian bodies do not recognize Latter Day Saint baptism; the disagreement is recorded here, not adjudicated.

Who decides what

A quorum of twelve apostles leads the church; there is no first presidency, which the body regards as a later addition without warrant.

What a first-time visitor would find

Sunday worship is plain and Protestant-looking — hymns, prayer, preaching, and the Lord's Supper — without the temple ordinances of the larger LDS tradition; the headquarters congregation meets beside the still-unbuilt Temple Lot itself.

What it has always cared about

Stewardship of the dedicated ground; the original name and organization held as a trust; and a small body's long patience.

Its gift to the wider church

The Temple Lot itself is the gift and the story: a piece of ground held in trust for over a century and a half is American religious history made visible, whatever a visitor believes about the dedication.

Commonly confused with

Its name is a trap for classifiers: it is NOT a Stone-Campbell Church of Christ, nor the LDS Church, nor Community of Christ — all three sit within a few blocks in Independence, and confusion among them is constant.

Range of views inside it

Small and doctrinally settled; such variation as exists concerns cooperation with other Latter Day Saint restoration branches.

A note from the mapmakers: This record is deliberately brief: the body is small and its published record modest. No US congregation count is published for it in RCMS 2020, and none is offered here. Nothing may be asserted of a specific congregation; sentences drawn from this record must never conflate this body with the Stone-Campbell Churches of Christ, and yield to the church's own materials.

Sources: Church of Christ (Temple Lot) — history and beliefs (Church of Christ (Temple Lot), Independence MO) · Scattering of the Saints: Schism within Mormonism (Newell G. Bringhurst and John C. Hamer, eds., John Whitmer Books)

Where Church of Christ (Temple Lot) churches are on the map

1 Church of Christ (Temple Lot) congregations appear on The Church Map, across 1 states.

More of the Latter Day Saint movement story · Find these churches on the map