Church of Christ (Temple Lot)

The Church of Christ (Temple Lot) is a sect of Mormonism headquartered in Independence, Missouri. Its official name is the Church of Christ. Members of the church have been known, colloquially, as Hedrickites, after Granville Hedrick, an early leader.

The church is an amalgam of five early, smaller Mormon churches or branches in Bloomington, Crow Creek, Half Moon Prarie, and Eagle Creek, Illinois, and Vermillion, Indiana. These small units united under Hedrick's leadership in May 1863. Notably, they were a few of hundreds of Saints who chose not to go west with Brigham Young.

They believe that Mormon founder Joseph Smith, Jr. was a true prophet only during his earlier years up to ca. 1836, and that he later fell from his high calling and betrayed it with such doctrines as polygamy. Thus the Church of Christ (Temple Lot) does not have a prophet and does not use the organizational unit of a First Presidency. It's current "spokesman" is apostle William A. Sheldon.

The church currently occupies a property in Independence, Missouri considered by Mormons to be the "Temple Lot" designated by Joseph Smith to be the site for the temple of the New Jerusalem, a sacred city to be built preparatory to the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. The Hedrickites returned to Independence in 1867 to purchase lots for the Temple and have been headquartered on this strategic sacred space ever since. In the 1930s, the church excavated the site in an attempt to build a temple on the location, but the effort was stalled because of the Great Depression, and the excavation was filled.

Current church population is about 2,400. Since the 1920s, this church has splintered into at least four other churches. One of these, The Church of Christ with the Elijah Message Established Anew in 1929 broke from the Church of Christ in the 1950s and has since grown to about 12,000 members.