Second Presbyterian Church — Attraction in Charleston

The church is gorgeous and the congregation is very very kind. Greta, the church's wedding coordinator, is extremely professional and really knows what she is doing! I'm disappointed to leave a less than stellar review for a church, however the minister - Cress Darwin - seems to have his head in the clouds and really drags the place down.

My (now) wife and I started attending in the summer of 2018, and discovered Cress was "on a summer break" and there were guest ministers filling his place. I had just proposed to my wife, and we were looking for a place for our ceremony and 2NDPC seemed to fit the bill. After Cress got back, we watched one or two of his sermons before we signed the paperwork, but gradually became more disenchanted with him.

When it came time for our first marriage counseling, he tried swapping our meeting time on us by email just an hour before we were scheduled to meet, and we had already made the drive downtown. He didn't wait for confirmation that the new time would work for us, he just didn't show. When he finally arrived, he seemed to have no idea who we were, despite having previously talked with him numerous times by name, and had no idea what we were there for. When he finally got settled, his excuse for being late was that he was "out at the stables riding horses with his daughter since she is home from boarding school." None of that seemed very minister-ly to us. The marriage counseling itself was very aggressive, and was not conducive to communication as he continued to make not-so-subtle hints as to how much money he and his family had/came from (apparently his daughters are "sick of Paris" because they've been there so many times already).

When the 1 month mark hit for us to get married, we got a surprise email from Cress stating he was bailing on our wedding, and had arranged for a replacement for us. We were initially caught off guard, but eventually got over it and wound up liking the stand-in more than Cress, so it was a blessing in disguise.

I'm not sure if he blew us off because our attendance began to wane as time went on - a direct product of my work schedule with the Navy being very inflexible and covering over service hours. Overall, we never established the kind of connection we were hoping to over the 6ish months we attended before...

Ate lunch in their tea room and absolutely loved it! I think they only host the tea room luncheons certain times of the year. If you’re in the Charleston area be sure to check it out if they’re serving lunch ! Old fashioned vibe with sandwiches, salads, soups, drinks desserts and even live music !!! The congregants there are soo cheerful and happy to...

This is our place of worship. This is a historic church, dating from 1803 and it sits on Wragg Square, a city park. It is beautiful, spiritual house of worship, where all are welcome. The first thing you will notice, are the smiles and warm handshakes you receive. Come worship with us. Google us for worship hours, programs and opportunities to serve...