Germantown’s Church of the Brethren celebrates their Christmas tricentennial

• Tweet
• Email

ABOVE PHOTO: A banner commemorating Germantown Church of the Brethren’s 300th anniversary is presented at the World Assembly held at GCOB in July. Photo by Glenn Riegel/Church of the Brethren

By Constance Garcia-Barrio

Despite what may have been freezing weather on Christmas Day in 1723, German immigrants who had fled religious persecution, performed baptisms in the Wissahickon Creek. Those stalwart believers who braved the creek’s chilly waters had made homes six miles northwest of Philadelphia, then a town of just over 23,000 inhabitants, estimates say. The immigrants’ resolve to worship God as they wished, and probably the presence of other German-speaking settlers who had arrived starting in 1683, drew them to the Wissahickon Valley.

They may have also been counting on the good land deals William Penn (1644-1718) promised in pamphlets he had distributed in Europe decades earlier. Penn wanted to entice investors, farmers, craftsmen, and their servants to come to Pennsylvania.

No matter what sealed the German pilgrims’ decision to venture to the northwest, an area clad in trees and streams, they founded the Church of the Brethren, located at 6611 Germantown Avenue. This December 25 will mark the 300th birthday of the church. The Brethren have tenets of baptism, pacifism, service, the priesthood of all believers, and simplicity, according to current church treasurer Cheryl Jensen-Gates.

 “For example, regarding simplicity, we value plain speech,” Jensen-Gates said. “We also don’t indulge in pomp and circumstance.”

In addition, the church follows seven declarations based on the Bible. For example, one says, “I am God’s workmanship. I am God’s masterpiece,” based on Ephesians 2:10, Jensen- Gates said.

Over its three centuries, the Brethren denomination has taken a stance on hot issues, including the abolition of slavery. In 1845, church elders issued a statement in Roanoke County, Virginia, saying that “it would be best for a follower of Jesus Christ to have nothing at all to do with slavery,” according to a University of Richmond publication. The Brethren forbade both owning and hiring slaves. On the other hand, church elders left it to individual congregations to decide whether to accept Black members.

The Brethren also joined the fray during the civil rights movement of the 1960s. They “dedicated considerable resources in advocating for racial equality,” to according to an article about an exhibit in the Bridgewater College Special Collections.

Today, the Germantown Avenue church continues to be guided by the tenets and declarations while responding to the changes and needs of the surrounding community. For instance, the church weathered the racial shift in the neighborhood in the 1960s. 

“It was a mixed area, Black and white, but whites were beginning to move out,” said Joseph Craddock, 89, a minister of the church and historian and caretaker of the cemetery. “Jews, Italians, and Blacks lived nearby. Pastor Lutz [Pastor Kyerematen’s immediate predecessor] overcame whatever racial barriers there were. When Pastor Kyerematen arrived, the area was mostly Black.”

The church almost closed later in the 1960s due to a different challenge. Drug dealing reached a level where one could purchase illegal substances at a drive-through window on Germantown Avenue, Craddock said. One day, he found Lutz leaning on the church fence, deeply troubled about the situation.

“He was thinking about closing the church,” Craddock said. “We prayed about it together.”

In the end, Lutz, along with members of the congregation, took to the streets.

 “We marched through the neighborhood, not just one day but with a crew of us on a regular basis,” Craddock said. Neighbors began joining the marchers and gradually reclaimed the area in that way.  Since Richard Kyerematen’s arrival in 1989, the church has grown still more attuned to the area’s needs.

 “The church ran Lafiya House, a residence at 6649 Germantown Avenue, in 1994 and 1995,” Craddock said. “It was a halfway house for people returning from prison to help them get back on their feet.”

“I was in charge of it, but I didn’t see it as my ministry. Music is my ministry,” he said, noting that he sings jazz, blues, and other genres, and that riders hailed him as “the Singing Driver” when he drove a trolley on Route 23.  Later, before Lafiya House was sold, it provided shelter for people who needed temporary lodging.

Kyerematen, originally from Ghana, devotes himself to young people in the church and the neighborhood, Jensen-Gates said. He had established tutoring and other programs for children and young adults, but they ended with COVID, she said. Since then, Kyerematen has begun rebuilding those initiatives.

“The church offers Reading Incentives for Supplemental Education [RISE],” Kyerematen said, of the “affordable, convenient, community-based” program to boost students’ reading skills to grade level. “We started the program in partnership with our neighborhood school, Emlen Elementary.”

 Those efforts don’t end with the school year. “We have a summer camp for children that includes academics and Christian values,” Jensen-Gates said. The church also hosts Community Day in the summer, an event that includes free hot dogs, pretzels, a moon jump, and other amusements. Vendors also sell clothes, books, handicrafts, and other items. 

Kyerematen believes in giving help wherever it’s needed, Jensen-Gates said. “He takes time with anyone who has trouble,” she said. “Once, a woman needed help with her rent, and he found a solution. Sometimes he goes with people to job interviews to lend moral support.”

The church also offers “Poetify,” a poetry workshop held regularly by congregant RuNett Ebo Gray. It attracts people of different ages, Jensen-Gates said. Ebo Gray also holds open mikes, whose only rule is to avoid profanity. The anniversary’s crowning event, Carnival 300, was held in October. It included gospel rapping, step dancing, drumming, and more. The celebration seems to have brought more people to the church, but Kyerematen’s plans further to serve the community may mean even more congregants. 

“He plans to extend one building to make a learning center,” Jensen-Gates said. The center will emphasize reading. In addition, the parsonage may become a space for community meetings and provide a place for psychological counseling and spiritual guidance. A senior housing complex may be on the drawing board, too.

This Christmas, a small group of church members will return to the Wissahickon Creek to commemorate the baptisms that took place there 300 years ago.

For more information about the Germantown Church of the Brethren, visit: https://www.gcob1723.com/    

• Tweet
• Email