BY DAVID DIXON, EPD DISTRICT TEAM
Of the 9.2 million people who live in the Eastern PA District, 45 percent live in the city of Philadelphia and its surrounding suburbs.
In our district, we also have 87 Alliance churches. Of those 87 churches, 10 of them are located amongst the 4.2 million that live in Philadelphia and its suburbs. This disparity, among other factors, led DEXCOM in May 2022 to commit our district to the Philadelphia Church Planting Initiative—the goal is to see three new churches planted in the city limits of Philadelphia by the end of 2026.
Our first step was to listen and learn.
We first needed to discover where God was already at work, the spiritual conditions of certain neighborhoods, how the city was changing demographically, and how other church planting movements are engaging in the city. To head up this learning process, we hired Scott Newcomer, an Alliance church elder from True Vine Church Community, who lives in Philadelphia, to help us with our Philadelphia Church Planting Discernment Project.
Scott began meeting with local community and church leaders, talking with people from various neighborhoods, and helping to identify focus areas in the city. This project ran from December 2022 to May 2023 and primarily helped us discern what neighborhoods or areas of the city would be best to target for church planting.
I want to share some of what was learned in this project.
The migration of people is shaping Philly’s culture.
One of the first things we noticed, when we began to dig through the demographics of the city, particularly the ethnic makeup, was that in the last 30-40 years there has been significant migration of people groups throughout and out of the city. For example, while South Philadelphia was once predominantly people of Italian, Irish, and African American descent (who were already somewhat living in isolation from each other), recent years have seen waves of both gentrification as well as Latino and Southeast Asian immigrants moving in. The displacement caused as the different people groups have moved in and around the area appears to have created bitterness and even more isolation.
This story of migration and displacement not only shapes the makeup of a neighborhood but also greatly shapes the culture. Churches will need to address this changing culture.
The city’s immigrant community must be embraced where they are.
If we are going to reach the different communities of Philadelphia, we have to take the time to learn the stories of the different immigrant communities and how to best relate the Gospel to them. This will require us to engage people deeply and relationally. In spaces where religion can be seen as “no longer important” to the practical struggles of Philadelphians, we must learn to foster disciple-making communities that are real and practical for everyday living.
For a church planting team, this will require patience and humility to embrace where people are in such a way that the Gospel becomes real to them. It will likely require us to think more like missionaries than perhaps we are accustomed to in church planting in other parts of Eastern PA.
If a church is going to be diverse, it must start diverse with its leadership and core team.
Our desire is to plant a multi-ethnic church in the city that embraces the different communities present in the neighborhood. As we looked out at other multi-ethnic churches in various parts of Philadelphia, we found a common piece of their story. Each church that worships as a diverse church started with a diverse leadership and core team. They didn’t connect with other community groups later; it was a part of the DNA right from the beginning.
As we consider not just where we want to plant in the city, it has become clear that the church must bring people together from other cultures right from the start. We can’t wait and hope that it happens later. We must be intentional about bringing together a core team that better represents the demographic of the neighborhood.
Most Alliance churches are located in Northeast, North, and West Philadelphia.
If you head to cmalliance.org/churches or epdalliance.org/find-a-church and search for churches in the city of Philadelphia, you will notice that almost all current Alliance churches reside north, northeast, or west of Center City. This is true, not only of our district, but also of the Metro, Spanish East, and Vietnamese district churches.
As we consider where we may want to plant for the Philadelphia Church Planting Initiative, our eyes naturally turn to where there are fewer Alliance churches. In our conversations with other current church planting movements, we were grateful to discover a sense of welcome to this strategy. There are current churches and movements in Center City and South Philadelphia that welcomed the idea of church planting in one of those areas.
Our next step is to begin foundational work for a church plant in South Philadelphia.
While we continue to listen and learn, the next step is to begin pre-planting work in South Philadelphia. Through our discernment project, we identified several neighborhoods that have potential as the location for the first church plant of our Philadelphia Church Planting Initiative.
As we continue to work with Scott Newcomer and identify other planters with the right character, competency, and calling toward this project, we hope to see new disciple-making communities blossom into a new church.
Please be in prayer for us as we seek out others to join the church planting team. Please also prayerfully consider how you might be involved by giving your time or giving financially to plant churches in Philadelphia.