A church to be built
on a 15-year foundation

When Pastor Gordon Simmons first came to Reformation Lutheran Church in Philadelphia’s East Mount Airy section 15 years ago, 50 to 60 people were coming to church on Sunday. "People were really concerned about the future of the congregation," Simmons recalls.

Today, the predominantly African American congregation in Northwest Philadelphia finds itself facing a healthy and exciting challenge. These Sundays the congregation’s two worship services are so packed that Reformation has to build. Ground was broken earlier this month for a $1.7 million building expansion to house a new sanctuary and fellowship hall. Simmons believes Reformation is the first Philadelphia Lutheran church to engage in a building campaign in nearly 30 years, the last one being Grace Lutheran Church in West Philadelphia, where Simmons served as a seminary intern. He graduated from The Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia in 1971.

Simmons with members of the STRETCH academic program, hosted by Reformation for Martin Luther King High School students.

Listen to Simmons, a modest, white pastor who hails from Nebraska, and you hear a story of a pastor who loves the city and its people. It is a story of passion and perseverance built over time. In the years Simmons has served Reformation he has called three times on each of the 10,000 homes in the congregation’s residential community. He is known in the neighborhood for riding his bicycle to make his house calls. (Bikerrev makes up part of his e-mail address.) Some of the visits have been "cold" calls, although many times he visits because someone has first visited the church or because someone in the congregation has suggested an opportunity. Sixty percent of Reformation’s members live within one-half mile of the church and 80 percent live within a mile, Simmons says. And many of Reformation’s 600 members today came to church in the first place because Simmons visited them three, six, seven or eight times. When they come to church they hear a pastor with an articulate, simple, extemporaneous, homespun preaching style that plumbs the depths of the Gospel for today’s listeners. He exudes wit and story-telling charm. And because he’s called on so many church neighbors over and over again, Simmons knows very much what is on their minds.

Simmons looks on as King High School students work on journal writing for the day.

"Education is one of the big issues," he says. "Many people leave the city over the issue of seeking a quality education for their kids. And some just don’t support the public schools for that reason." The concern seems to be well-founded. Simmons claims that about one-half the ninth graders attending Martin Luther King High School in his community fail to graduate from ninth grade. The congregation’s response has been to partner with the public schools. It conducts an ambitious ninth-grade tutoring program for 15 scholars in what the congregation calls its STRETCH Academy. But that’s not all, The congregation also leads an enrichment program in the community’s F. S. Edmonds Elementary School from 7 to 9 a.m. and 3-6 p.m. each weekday. "I’m in and out of the school all the time," he says. The church’s tutoring effort, featuring both staff and volunteers, strives in part to get children reading at a second-grade level before they get to that grade. The church also raised $50,000 from government and private sources for a new playground for Edmonds.

Simmons with expansion drawing. The new Reformation sanctuary will seat more than 300 parishioners. The new building will also have a fellowship hall and new kitchen.

Simmons is quick to credit church members for Reformation's resurgence over the years and for energizing initiatives like a Men's Choir, which performed at the seminary this fall during a Men in Mission program focusing on worship.

Evelyn Trent, Reformation's parish administrator and president of Reformation's congregation council at the time of the groundbreaking, describes the emotions of the congregation as "excited….We need this expansion because our church has really been growing," she says. "though we now have many people on our church rolls, we have about 300 active members you see at church on a regular basis. Our active membership just keeps on growing, so we really need a new sanctuary. We have so many activities at our church and look forward to having more when the building is done."

The Reformation groundbreaking involved some 200 participants including parishioner Ruth P. Robinson, who is in her 80s and took part in the digging. One of the visitors was Bishop Roy Almquist of the Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod

Reformation was founded in 1942. Previous plans for expansion were considered as long ago as 55 years, and then in the 1960s, but never came to fruition. The schedule calls for construction to be completed in about 10 months. Trent notes the congregation won't have to relocate during the expansion. "I know they are going to have to tear down a wall, so maybe we'll sit in the church with our coats on if we have to!"

What are some other activities Reformation hosts? The congregation sponsors a performing arts program. Reformation parish nurses run a wholistic health center that advises parishioners and visitors on health education matters and offers spiritual and mental health counseling. Reformation runs a summer camp for scores of children too. Older adults receive instruction in computers. High school students are taught in preparation for taking their SATs. Many neighborhood organizations and block clubs hold their meetings at the church.

Simmons with bicycle. Somehow he manages to maneuver around stubborn ice on Mt. Airy's side streets.

People don’t forget the kind of perseverance for Jesus people see in Simmons, who rides his bike to make calls even when wintry ice stubbornly clings to Mt. Airy's side streets. During an interview Simmons tells of how he has just been on the phone with a neighborhood woman who belongs to another church. Fourteen years ago Simmons worked with the woman on a community-based anti-drugs campaign in part because the street corner outside her home was a hotbed for trafficking. Today the woman is homebound but had spotted a young man across the street she believed to be in trouble. "She called me today and asked me to hold this man in high prayer," he says.

One man who joined the church more than a year ago renewed acquaintances with Simmons after he said the pastor had "come to me in a dream." Simmons had called on the man the first time 10 years ago and apparently made quite an impression. Experiencing family troubles, the man called Simmons after the dream and told him of his troubles and said that he was unhappy with the lifestyle he was leading. "I guess this dream is a sign from God that I am supposed to join the church," the man told the pastor. He was baptized late in 2001.

Reformation also does advocacy on education, crime and housing issues via the Philadelphia Interfaith Action Organization.

"Theologically, I think it is important for a church and its pastor to be intensely involved in the life of the community," Simmons says. "It is incarnational, I believe, to be the presence of Christ in the community."

These days some of that community presence is also provided by Laura Sinche-Vitucci, an LTSP seminarian on internship at Reformation.

Once the construction is completed, Reformation will have a 327-seat sanctuary and a fellowship hall with room for 200 persons seated at tables. The expansion will also feature a modern kitchen. So far the congregation has raised $600,000 toward the $1.7 million structure and has mortgaged the rest with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America’s Mission Investment Fund. "The ELCA and the synod have been great partners," Simmons says. The congregation has taken on the financial risk of a big mortgage with some nervousness, Simmons admits, but he says "it is a good challenge for us." He is also grateful to be part of a congregation that genuinely appreciates and supports his work as a pastor. "I hear so many stories of pastors who have an adversarial relationship with their congregations, and that surely isn’t the case for me," he says.

Simmons notes that many African American congregations (40 percent) in the ELCA don’t have a pastor. Also, "many African American churches in the ELCA think it is inevitable that they remain small," he says. "I just want them to know it doesn’t have to be that way."