Pilgrim is affiliated with the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. We are reformed in our doctrinal beliefs. Our primary standard is the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, which are inspired by God and without error.

We believe the Westminster Confession of Faith, The Larger Catechism, and The Shorter Catechism set out an accurate systematic description of the teachings of the Bible.

Being Presbyterian means that we believe that the Bible teaches that the church should be governed by elders (known as presbyters) who are called of God, and recognized and duly elected by the church. Elders make up the Session, which oversees and governs a particular church. The Pastors are called Teaching Elders, and the Ruling Elders are ordained laymen (Acts 20 and Titus I). Elders from the particular churches in a geographic area make up a presbytery.

The presbytery oversees the ministries of the churches in this area and knits them together in direction, communication, and fellowship. The presbyteries send commissioners to the General Assembly (GA), which meets annually. The GA unites the commissioners from the presbyteries and gives the spiritual and practical direction to the denomination as a whole.

Presbyterian churches were established in America by immigrants from Scotland, Ireland and England and were a strong and faithful church during the1800s to the early 1900s. However, as liberalism entered the church, the authority of the Bible was questioned and modern secular thinking supplanted biblical truth. Consequently, a group of ministers, elders and laymen, led by J. Gresham Machen, met in 1936 to develop a new conservative denomination and the Orthodox Presbyterian Church was born.

Excerpted from "What is the OPC" by the Committee on Christian Education of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.

Pilgrim has been in Raleigh for nearly 30 years and at our present location on Ebenezer Church Road since 2003. We are a member of the Presbytery of the Southeast.