The congregation began as the Liberty Class, formed in 1847 for Bible study and worship in Jim Creager’s log cabin south of the site by the Rev. Joab Biggs of the Dallas Methodist Circuit and M. F. Cole. In 1855, after a rainstorm detained quarterly conference delegates to hear an all-night sermon, the Rev. Y. S. McKinney preached for three weeks and saw 60 conversions. The enlarged class moved to Mantua, built a frame chapel on the town square, and took the name Mt. Zion Methodist Church. When Van Alstyne was founded on the Houston & Texas Central Railroad in 1873, Mt. Zion moved its building into town to a site now in Van Alstyne Cemetery. By 1890 membership exceeded 400. In 1893 the congregation moved again, erected a larger building at Waco and Jefferson Streets, and changed its name to First Methodist Church. In that sanctuary, the First District Epworth League of the Southern Methodist Church was organized in 1894. Theodore Roosevelt spoke there in 1912, and in 1917 one of Texas’ earliest Boy Scout troops was formed there. The present sanctuary was completed and dedicated in 1917, with the dedicatory sermon given by the Rev. Sam R. Hay. After a national ecumenical accord was reached in 1968, the congregation received its present name.