Four Philadelphia Churches

Everyone wants to know how “successful” churches do it. What makes a church alive with the Spirit?

Size doesn’t matter. The world’s full of huge churches that are spiritually dead. Location doesn’t matter. Many churches thrive in spite of geographical handicaps. Money doesn’t matter. Misused wealth has been the ruin of many congregations while spiritual prosperity has been achieved on shoestring budgets.

To glean a few insights about a cross-section of congregations, we went to veteran church observer Russ Hitt, former editor of Eternity, and author of a recent series of articles in that publication on churches in various sections of the country. We asked him to select four churches in his own turf of Philadelphia, describe them, and make observations about what makes them work.

Four churches in Philadelphia. Each with a membership of about 300. Each nurturing and instructing believers. Each developing its vision of mission and outreach. Each serving its community.

But they are so different from one another! They differ in polity, in the communities they serve, and in the means the pastors use to lead their flocks.

Two of the churches are congregational in polity and two are Presbyterian; but is it possible that varying polity and convictions on ecclesiology are some how not too important? Several elements transcend those concerns. A caring mood, a Spirit-led harmony of purpose, a spontaneous outreach to the needy world-these elements make these churches work.

Calvary Fellowship Church

This church is located near Lionville, Pennsylvania, not far from Exton Mall, one of the newest and largest shopping centers in the western suburbs of Philadelphia, in a rapidly expanding suburban/ exurban community made up of middle class, middle executive, and professional people.

Rick Rodriguez pastors Calvary. Rick came from a non-religious home in the Tampa, Florida area, but the grace of God took over when he attended a meeting of Youth Ranch at a St. Petersburg church. Rick was converted, left his studies at the University of South Florida, and enrolled at Florida Bible College. He has since completed a master’s degree in biblical studies at Dallas Theological Seminary and is now taking courses in Greek at Biblical Seminary in Hatboro, Pennsylvania.

Rick learned pastoral leadership while he was an assistant to Dr. George Linhart at Grace Chapel, one of Philadelphia’s strongest independent churches. In his seven years at Grace, Rick had scintillating success with a Youth Ranch modeled after the Florida prototype that led to his conversion.

Two small independent congregations, one which had met in the local firehouse and the other in the township building, merged to form Calvary. Professional people, business people, and a wide cross-section of suburban families make up the congregation. Rodriguez, friendly and peopleoriented, develops spiritual maturity in his people by spending time with them in social situations, especially in the homes where small groups meet for Bible study and prayer fellowship. He also goes hunting ant fishing with his men.

Rick keys his approach around four principles:

1. Teach and preach the Word of God.

2. Disciple elders to care for the flock. He eschews authoritarian leadership.

3. Emphasize the grace of God as the active agent leading to conversion and growth.

4. Encourage the people to do the work of the church.

Rodriguez tries to remove himself as much as possible from the financial affairs of the church. He makes no pleas for offerings; collection plates are seldom passed. Yet the congregation has purchased eleven acres for $50,000, and conducts church services in a new building which cost $200,000. All of the building planning and some of the actual construction work was done by members of the church. Even though the little congregation has its own building obligations, eleven percent of the church budget goes to home and foreign missions.

Calvary Fellowship Church is associated with the Independent Fundamental Churches of America and therefore not aligned with the mainline denominations, but it would be a mistake to brand this church as unfriendly to those “outside.” Although the teaching of the Word of God is central, the truth is not presented in either a doctrinaire or legalistic fashion. The pastor cares about people, and he trains them to help run the church. He recognizes the importance of discipling his elders, who pass on their training to the believers under their care. Rick has discovered that koinonia flourishes around the Word of God, not apart from it.

The church has the advantage of being located in a growing community with many younger families. Also, it is essentially a middle-class to upper middle-class, homogenous, white neighborhood, a factor often conducive to church growth.

Holy Trinity-Bethlehem United Presbyterian

Church

This church, related to a major denomination and located in the inner city, contrasts in many ways with Calvary Fellowship. It has a wide diversity of nationalities-all in the same pot that was supposed to melt together in line with wistful dreams of earlier social engineers.

Years ago, twelve Protestant congregations and one Roman Catholic church served the one square mile of the Logan section of Philadelphia. Now one Catholic parish and one other Protestant church have survived in the area besides Holy Trinity-Bethlehem, itself a merger of two congregations. The Depression and changing demographic patterns doomed all the other churches.

The Logan area is not pretty; it bears all the marks of urban decay, and the omnipresent graffiti proclaim the disorder. Oddly enough, no graffiti mar the stone walls of Holy Trinity-Bethlehem, and therein lies a clue to its continued viability.

Dr. Edward B. Jones, the minister, has convinced the neighborhood that this church serves the needs of the community. The church maintains this status even more effectively than the neighboring Roman Catholic church. Holy Trinity-Bethlehem is the community church.

Known to his intimates as Casey, Jones is a balding, fifty-year-old bachelor with a Ph.D. in church history from St. Andrews University in Scotland. He has a great talent for unobtrusive leadership. Brought up in the small town of Parkesburg in eastern Pennsylvania, by the time he had reached the sixth grade he had his first inklings that God would call him into the ministry. But his immediate goal was preparation for teaching, so he enrolled in Millersville State University. After studying there two years, his pastor convinced him he should complete his undergraduate work at Bob Jones University. Today, his clerical garb notwithstanding, he declares he learned things at BJU that have been invaluable to his later ministry.

‘When this neighborhood began to change,” says Jones, “the elders of the then WASPish session decided that the Lord had placed the church here and, under God, it would continue to serve the community regardless of the changing racial mix.” Thus the church began its commitment to serve the adjacent community, and that explains in part why the people in the neighborhood feel it is their church.

In line with this policy, Jones implemented a community-oriented program. Today one-third of the congregation is black, and the integrated church functions smoothly and with a deep sense of Christian mission. Activities abound for all who pour into the church. Senior citizens enjoy their Towanda Club. Neighborhood youths play on at least six basketball teams and in the recreational program jointly sponsored by the city’s Police Athletic League. There is a day nursery for mothers who contribute a day a week to its maintenance.

Three other congregations use the facilities of the huge church: Zion Episcopal Church, which recently sold its own property; the Maranatha Assembly of God, which serves a Portuguesespeaking congregation; and a Korean Presbyterian church.

Calvary Fellowship and Holy Trinity-Bethlehem are worlds apart, yet each is effective; the methodology of Holy Trinity-Bethlehem has a unique impact in the difficult context of the inner city. Blacks who come to play basketball sense they are loved, and a low-key gospel approach gradually wins their hearts. This integrated church works because of a pervading atmosphere of Christian love. Under Casey Jones’ quiet direction, this church is a lighthouse in a stormy sea.

Parker Ford Baptist Church

Affiliated with American Baptist churches, the congregation has had its ups and downs since it was founded in 1859 in a rural community. Now the beautiful, hilly Chester County community is being swallowed up by Philadelphia suburbia’s sprawl.

The pastor is William K. Waterston, a sophisticated communications expert who served the ABC bureaucracy at Valley Forge before digging into the challenges of a local pastorate. A graduate of Bates College and Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary, he first worked for radio station WMTW in Lewiston, Maine, while still an undergraduate. Waterston spent twelve years in denominational work, first in the magazine field and then in radio and television. He still participates in ecumenical Christian broadcasting under the auspices of the Delaware Valley Media Ministry, sometimes as host of a TV dialogue show.

Work in the little church at Parker Ford May not be as glamorous as television, but Waterston finds pastoral work challenging. The Parker Ford church includes a wide demographic spread: professionals, educators, retired farmers, factory workers. Tensions remain between older members and newcomers, but good relationships are developing.

Waterston tries to develop his Parker Ford flock spiritually by including a strong sense of stewardship and mission. Like other pastors in this survey, Waterston knows he cannot attain his goals without training his twelve deacons; most of them were new to the work of spiritual oversight. He also uses:

1. Preaching. His sermons are biblically based, and he uses colorful, relevant illustrations. He provides complete outlines in advance of his Sunday evening Bible studies. This invites greater participation by the people.

2. Small groups. The going has been slow, but three groups now meet for Bible study.

3. Counseling. Bill spends an unusual amount of time in person-to-person counseling.

4. Developing a sense of mission. Historically, the congregation has not possessed a great concern for outreach; but there are some very encouraging signs. One of the young deacons and his bride recently offered themselves for a short-term, ABC missionary project in Cordova, Alaska. This couple’s infectious enthusiasm has affected the entire church.

There has also been a compassionate response by the congregation to the needs of the Cambodian refugees.

Waterston came to Parker Ford in 1975. One of his first statements in the church bulletin illustrated his vision for the church. ‘We must build bridges, not walls; the community will respond to us only if we take a genuine interest in individuals and their specific needs.”

New Life Presbyterian Church

This Orthodox Presbyterian church is committed to Reformed theology and faithfulness to the Westminster Confession. Despite this theological commitment, New Life Church bears little resemblance to worship habits and lifestyles of sister Presbyterian churches.

New Life Presbyterian Church meets in the Y.M.C.A. of Abington, an upper middle-class Philadelphia suburb; it was started through the evangelistic activities of Dr. John (Jack) Miller, a member of the faculty of Westminster Theological Seminary located in a nearby suburb. Miller had been working with counter-culture young people in the 60s. The New Life church, organized as a congregation in 1974, grew out of this earlier work. Young adults with a proliferating number of children make up the bulk of the congregation.

Lively songs punctuated with up-raised arms or rhythmic hand-clapping animate the Sunday worship service. The hearty singing is supplemented by testimonies and sharing. Miller stresses the need for involvement in the worship service, seeing this not as just a warm-up, but as a meaningful exercise in itself. Miller, fifty years old, has a strong affinity for young people, and this is reflected in the make-up of the congregation. He is a spontaneous, creative leader who avoids structure, though he is quite willing for others to employ it in the rapidly-growing church. He lists four steps in the church’s vision:

1. Principle (philosophy of ministry). Emphasis centers on the growth of individual Christians. Twenty discipleship groups meet weekly in members’ homes. More than 200 are active in these groups.

2. Personnel. Pastoral efforts center on working with fellow elders, who lead discipleship groups which often have as many as twenty members, somewhat larger than the numbers found in other “small” groups. Yet the stress is always on spiritual growth in every individual within a loving, supportive community.

Some of the members of New Life Church earlier had serious emotional difficulties, dope addiction, or other problems that required hours and hours of counseling. But today, many of these liberated individuals have become stalwarts in the church.

3. Program. Although the emphasis in the church is on discipleship, this is not an end in itself. Nearly everyone at New Life is engaged in outreach through a staggering list of activities which include children’s work, nursing home and prison visitation, meetings in the Norristown State (psychiatric) Hospital and the Eagleville Drug and Alcohol Rehabilitation Hospital, neighborhood evangelism, high school and college witnessing, meals for the sick, and a tape ministry. The church takes its witnessing seriously.

4. Plant. Already the facilities of the Abington Y.M.C.A. are taxed by this burgeoning church. They conduct three worship services on Sunday-two in the morning and one in the afternoon. About 75 percent of the members and their families attend Sunday school, and this demands more classrooms than are presently available. The need for an adequate house of worship has evolved from the church’s growth, and the matter is being carefully studied.

Some reflections

1. Habitat of Pulsing Life

The four churches of this study differ in ecclesiology, theology, and polity; but all possess the dynamic life that comes from meeting in the name of Jesus Christ.

Conclusions? Pastors and those charged with feeding and discipling church members need to develop talent-scout sensibilities. When encouraged, the gifts of the individual members can contribute vibrantly to the whole. The Spirit of God provides Christians with unique supernatural capacities which too often lie idle.

Many Christian leaders in our country, overawed by the contaminating influence of this “present evil world,” lose heart or cop out. Not so in these four churches. The Lord has ordained that the church of Jesus Christ operate in the world. The models of this study demonstrate that effective churches can prosper in exurbia, in suburbia, or in a deprived urban setting. The congregation of believers, as well as individual Christians, contains within itself the very life of God -which provides the power to overcome obstacles.

2. Beliefs and Believers

Historically, biblical churches have emphasized the propositional character of the Christian faith. Hence the stress on confessionalism and the creedal basis of the common life in Christ. None of the churches in this study has soft-pedaled this aspect, reinforcing a number of recent studies which have indicated that churches which affirm an orthodox faith are flourishing.

But this is only a part of the picture. Christianity is based in relationship; first to Christ and then to other believers. All of the churches of this study stress both the biblical content of faith as well as the importance of living out the eternal truths. Various methods develop individual believers. Small groups which study the Word of God, share their insights and burdens, and pray together in an informal atmosphere have had strong impact on the growth of these four congregations. There is also a place for formal preaching. The Word has transcultural power if it is expounded in terms people can understand in their own situation. “Contextualization” is an abstract word, but all it means is preaching eternal truth in comprehensible terms.

3. Breaking Out of the Cocoon

Except to a few biologists, the larval stage of growth is not very intriguing. But when the butterfly emerges, it flies forth to radiate its beauty and gladden the hearts of us all. The local church that merely lives in its own circumscribed world, concentrating on its own inner life and worship, never fulfills God’s greater purpose. It seems to live on its own juices. The churches in this study have discovered the importance of outreach. Indeed, there is a direct ratio between growth of churches and their vision of mission to the world.

These four churches have not been daunted by the sinful culture that surrounds them. They have not hesitated to avoid the contamination of leprous flesh. Rather, they have stretched out hands of healing, and witnessed God’s provision of wholeness.