McGregor Presbyterian Church was founded in 1971 in what was then the small village of Irmo. She was a mission church planted to meet the movement of Columbia, SC into the suburbs.

As it happened, however, the life of McGregor followed a distinctly different path than originally planned. Here is a look back at some milestones in McGregor's history:

• Sunday, September 12, 1971: Twenty Irmo residents met this evening with officials from Congaree Presbytery to gauge community interest in establishing a new Presbyterian church in the Irmo community. The Rev. Cecil D. Brearley Jr., executive secretary of the presbytery, and Harry T. Schutte, chairman of the presbytery's Church Extension Committee, told those gathered at the meeting at Irmo High School that 6.61 acres on St. Andrews Road, just down the road from the school, had already been purchased as a location for a new church. Congaree Presbytery was affiliated with the Presbyterian Church in the U.S. (PCUS).

• September 26, 1971: The group gathered again with strength from additional community residents who shared their interest in establishing a new church and agreed to move forward with this project.

• November 7, 1971: The newly formed church held its first worship service in the cafeteria of Irmo High School, with 44 people in attendance. Rev. Brearley, serving in the interim during the search for a minister to lead the new church, preached the first sermon, "The Ideal Church." No Sunday school classes were held, and, in the absence of hymnals, hymns were typed up and inserted into the bulletins. The first offering was dedicated to the establishment of a building fund. Thereafter, 10 percent of the offering was set aside for benevolences.

• December 5, 1971: The first Sunday school classes were added to the Sunday morning schedule, still meeting at the high school. In the months ahead, some services would be held at Seven Oaks Recreation Center while the school was undergoing renovations and before construction had begun on a church building.

• December 1971: The church extended an invitation to the Rev. C. William Solomon Jr. to serve as its organizing pastor. Rev. Solomon's first Sunday as minister of the new church was Feb. 6, 1972.

• March 1972: A building committee was established to begin planning for construction of a church building on the St. Andrews Road property. Also in this month, the church was named for the late Dr. J. Rupert McGregor, a native of South Carolina and former president of Montreat College who had served as minister of Presbyterian churches in South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama and who was a resident of Columbia at the time of his death.

• May 23, 1972: The petition for organization, signed by 71 Irmo area residents, was approved by Congaree Presbytery.

• May 28, 1972: McGregor Presbyterian Church held its organizational service, during which 66 people were received as charter members.

• October 21, 1972: On this "work day," a group of McGregor volunteers spent the day on the St. Andrews Road property to begin clearing a site for construction of a church building.

• June 3, 1973: The groundbreaking for the new church building was held. At this time, McGregor had 156 members. The initial building was planned as a 16,000-square-foot multi-purpose facility with classrooms and "a combination fellowship hall and temporary sanctuary," according to an article in The St. Andrews News, dated May 31, 1973.

• March 17, 1974: The first worship service and the first Sunday school classes were held in the new church building.

• 1978: A new wing was added beside the sanctuary to provide office space, a library, and a large meeting room for Sunday school. Also at this time, a balcony was added to the sanctuary.

• 1980: A congregational meeting was held to debate whether to retire the debt on the current building before initiating the next phase of construction at McGregor, as recommended by the Session. However, the congregation-which had grown to 686 members by the end of 1979-felt a compelling need for additional space and expressed its preference to move forward with new construction. The building committee was reactivated, and it contacted an architect to work on plans for additional educational space, while keeping in mind the master plan that called for a new sanctuary.

• Summer of 1981: The Session of McGregor, along with its minister, Rev. Solomon, and some of its members, began to express dissatisfaction and doctrinal differences with the PCUS. They called a congregational meeting to propose seeking dismissal from the PCUS in order to become affiliated with another Presbyterian denomination, the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA). McGregor had about 700 members at this time. At the meeting, 265 members voted in favor of parting with the PCUS; 39 voted against. This launched a period of dispute within McGregor Presbyterian Church and within Congaree Presbytery as to the appropriateness of this course of action and the ownership of church property, culminating in a lawsuit that was filed on Dec. 1, 1981.

• September 1981: Rev. Solomon and the Session of McGregor formally became members of the PCA and were ordained in that denomination. Additional McGregor members also joined the PCA at this time; others remained with the PCUS.

• May 11-13, 1982: The civil court case involving the disputing parties came to trial in Lexington County. Eleven members of McGregor who remained loyal to the PCUS acted as plaintiffs in the case.

• July 23, 1982: The ruling on this lawsuit was issued by Judge Julius H. Baggett, recognizing "the plaintiffs and the class which they represent" as "the true McGregor Presbyterian Church" and entitling them to possession of all church property and funds. The defendants-those members who had joined the PCA-were required "to immediately vacate" the property and to return all assets to McGregor.

• August 1982: The departing members of McGregor, constituting a vast majority of the church membership, established a PCA church that is now Cornerstone Presbyterian Church on Bush River Road.

• October 23, 1983: Rev. Arthur F. Fogartie was installed as pastor of McGregor Presbyterian Church. The church he came to lead had, at this time, 83 members and an annual debt service of over $40,000.

• 1983: The establishment of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), resulting from the reunion of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S. (PCUS, sometimes called the "southern branch") and the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. (UPCUSA, the "northern branch").

• May 29, 1984: The Session approved the establishment of a preschool at McGregor, with classes to begin on September 1 of that year.

• August 1985: Rev. Fogartie accepted a call to serve First Presbyterian Church of Asheville, N.C.

• October 1985: Rev. A. A. (Bill) Markley was approved to serve as interim minister of McGregor through Jan. 5, 1986.

• November 1985: Rev. Robert W. Richter was approved to serve as interim pastor beginning Jan. 5, 1986, and continuing until the church called a permanent pastor.

• July 1986: Rev. Thomas S. Glenn accepted a call to serve as pastor of McGregor. He delivered his first sermon on Sept. 28, 1986, and was formally installed on Oct. 12. Rev. Glenn served McGregor until June 1999.

• Feb. 7, 1988: McGregor launched a "debt buster campaign" in an effort to retire its $230,000 debt. Inspired by a challenge gift of $75,000, the church raised pledges of at least $25,000 a year for the next three years to match the gift. With these pledges and additional gifts, McGregor reduced its debt to $16,000 by May 1991.

• 1993: The Session accepted a special gift from a donor to be applied to the remaining church debt. This, supplemented by additional contributions from church members, was enough to finally retire the church building debt.

• May 18, 1997: In a special service that served for many as door to reconciliation, McGregor celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary with special guest Rev. Bill Solomon. In Rev. Solomon's brief remarks, he asked forgiveness of the McGregor congregation for his role in "the sad and fractured division that occurred in this church in the early 1980s." In his subsequent sermon, Rev. Glenn thanked Rev. Solomon for his gracious remarks of remembrance, repentance, and reconciliation and called the congregation to "with joy and thanksgiving look to our future, celebrating our journey with praise to our Lord."

• October 1999-October 2001: McGregor was served by three interim pastors during the search for its new minister. These were Rev. Dr. Ron VanSchenkhof (Oct. 1, 1999-Dec. 31, 2001), Rev. Dr. Ellen F. Skidmore (Jan. 3, 2001-May 6, 2001), and Rev. Dr. Zane Moore (June 1, 2001-Oct. 14, 2001).

• October 21, 2001: Rev. W. Stewart Rawson preached his first sermon as the new pastor of McGregor. He was formally installed on Nov. 1, 2001. Rev. Rawson continues to serve McGregor, overseeing a congregation of about 300 members as of February 2007.

• June 5, 2005: The congregation met to look at architect Craig Otto's drawings for a new McGregor sanctuary and agreed to move forward with more detailed plans for construction. The church committed to a contract to build in May of the following year.

• Sept. 11, 2005: At an evening congregational meeting, the church voted to initiate a capital campaign to fund the estimated $1.2 million cost of building a new sanctuary and related improvements.

• June 18, 2006: The groundbreaking for the new sanctuary was held.

• March 18, 2007: The dedication of the new sanctuary was held.