Ernest Malcom Myatt

Present Day Sanctuary

Our History

Two Thousand and Eight is a year for marking history for our congregation. One Hundred years ago, courageous lay people launched a Sunday School mission at the "south fork of Fayetteville Road". Within a few months, Dr. William McClanahan White, new pastor for Raleigh's First Presbyterian Church, was preaching for the mission two Sunday afternoons a month.

Ninety-five years ago, Ernest Malcolm Myatt was graduating from Washington and Lee University. Stricken with tuberculosis and confined in a New York sanatorium, the Raleigh native secured his release to return home before dying. Deeply concerned that his father was not a Christian, days before his death, Ernest shared the gospel with his father. W. A. Myatt subsequently trusted in Christ, making his profession of faith at the mission. Inspired by the testimony of young Ernest, the congregation took the name "Myatt's Chapel" in 1915, when the cornerstone for the sanctuary was laid. Eight years later a commission of Granville Presbytery officially organized the new "Ernest Myatt Presbyterian Church". That Sunday, First Presbyterian of Raleigh dismissed 79 members to form the initial membership of the Myatt Church. Remarkably, 55 of them had become Christians through the mission.

Sixty years ago, members of the church constructed a manse for the church's first called pastor, the Rev. Hayes Clark, and his family. Until Hayes Clark's arrival in 1946, the congregation worshipped o Sunday afternoons, served by Dr. White until his unexpected death in 1934 and a succession of part-time pastors and pulpit supplies. From that date forward, Ernest Myatt Presbyterian Church has been blessed with strong pulpit leadership.

With the tremendous commercial and residential growth of our south side Raleigh area of mission, our congregation moves toward the new millennium with a bright, promising future. As in the past, we seek our Lord's blessing and leadership for our vision and ministry of worship, word, and witness as we lift up Christ and build up people in him.

Our Called Pastors:
The Rev. Hayes Clark 1946 - 1948
The Rev. William Childs Robinson 1948 - 1948
The Rev. Wilbur R. Cousar 1954 - 1960
The Rev. Charles R. Hasty 1961 - 1964
The Rev. Hugh S. Evans 1965 - 1970
The Rev. Neil H. Bain 1971 - 1987
Dr. Carl A. Rush 1988 - 1995
The Rev. Clyde M. Wiley, Jr. 1996 - 1999
The Rev. Michael Hill 1999 - 2004
The Rev. John K. Langham 2007-