History of Renewal

THE CITY OF BROTHERLY LOVE

The term "West Philadelphia" actually encompasses a large area of the city, surrounded by the Schuylkill River, City Line Avenue, and the Airport, and including many neighborhoods such as Grays Ferry, Overbrook, and University City. Our church is located in the core of West Philadelphia, which comprises no neighborhood of its own.

During postwar America, the West Philadelphia area was a thriving middle and upper-middle class region of the city. However, after the 1950's and 1960's, two trends swept through urban America. The first was the mass exodus of whites as blacks migrated to the area in droves, attracted by the presence of industrial labor. The second was the simultaneous and rapid deindustrialization of the American economy, which badly hurt the living standards of these new residents. Because of a combination of poverty, lack of opportunity, and simple racism, residential segregation based on race persisted, containing many future social problems within these neighborhoods.

"IN THE BEGINNING..."

Emmanuel Church (or Korean United Church, as it was then known) arrived on the West Philadelphia scene during the 1960's, just as this period of decline began. The first major Korean church in the Philadelphia area, it began with a very small congregation housed in various different buildings over the years, most notably the present-day Iron Gate Theatre on Penn's campus at 37th and Chestnut. This was KUC's home until 1981, when a church split occurred.

TWO VISIONS

It had become necessary to move to a new building, preferably one that was bigger and more permanent, and one had been found. It was a former Jewish Community Center on Osage Avenue, an area more west of University City. However, the leaders of the church could not agree upon the wisdom of the move. While the majority of the elders wished to move to a more suburban location for reasons dealing with family and safety, the majority of deacons wanted to stay the course. In the end, it was agreed that the congregation would divide, with one half moving out to KUC's present-day location near the northern suburbs, while the other half would remain in West Philadelphia.

However, with only half the congregation, the Osage Avenue site was no longer affordable, leading to a desperate search that finally led to the discovery of an old, abandoned hospital building on 48th and Spruce St. This building had once housed the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine (until they moved to their present day site on City Line Ave.) and been abandoned for close to ten years and was in dire need of renovation. Covered with graffiti and filled with dust, rubble, and peeling paint, it was not an especially attractive sight. But the circumstances required a decision, and a commitment was made to build a church there.

The initial vision of the Emmanuel English Congregation (what we used to be known as) was the formation of a college ministry (Emmanuel University Fellowship, ca. 1989) among the college campuses of West Philadelphia. Eventually, the English Congregation grew to a thriving college and young adult ministry of 200+ people. But in spite of this growth, we did not have a particular vision to make an impact for Christ in the West Philadelphia neighborhood.

TRAGEDY

In 1993, one of the deacons from the Korean congregation, as he was waiting in the car for his wife, who was at choir practice, was killed in a car-jacking by two youths from the neighborhood. This tragic event occurred within the confines of our church parking lot and left many scared, alarmed, and very frightened. As an act of reconciliation, a local African-American street evangelist came to Emmanuel Church to ask for forgiveness on behalf of the two youths from the neighborhood.

And so our church responded, "Forgive them, for they know not what they do." Instead of closing our doors in fear, our church began to see the need to stretch out our "hands and feet" and shine the love of Christ to the very community in which we are located. Aware of the needs of the neighborhood, we began a carnival style event (called "Under the Son") in our parking lot to meet and form relationships with our neighbors the following June. Only a year after the murder, we held an outreach event full of food, games, basketball, crafts, and a Gospel message in the parking lot of our church, the same parking lot where one of our deacons was murdered.

In 1998, our church sponsored our first ever short-term summer team to serve our West Philadelphia community. The team helped build homes with Habitat for Humanity, did extensive research on ways to help the surrounding community, built relationships with our neighbors, and continued to hold the Parking Lot Outreach along with a Vacation Bible School. After having a great time with the neighborhood kids during VBS, the residents of the apartments next door approached us about doing some sort of summer program for their children. This is how God opened the doors for us to begin "Lighthouse", a summer day camp full of praises, Bible study, math and English tutoring, and field trips for the children in the apartment complex next door. In the coming years, we've continued this short-term summer missions team to "go" to West Philadelphia and teach Vacation Bible School and run our Lighthouse Day Camp.

Today we continue our outreach efforts in the West Philadelphia community. We participated in "Angel Tree" ministries, giving gifts to children whose parents are in prison in the name of the jailed parent. Born out of our participation in "Angel Tree", our church began a community tutoring/mentoring ministry for our neighborhood children. The program for grades K-5 is called "Quo Vadis," and the program for grades 6-12 is "Teen Vision."

RENEWAL PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

In the Spring of 2006, the English Congregation ordained its first elders. This enabled the English Congregation to create its own session (government) and officially become an independent church and not simply an extension of a Korean church. To mark this new milestone, the name Renewal Presbyterian Church was chosen to distinguish our church independent of the Emmanuel Church in Philadelphia.

Though asked if we would now leave West Philadelphia, what we have to say is: this is where we belong. God has brought us here and we are not planning on leaving anytime soon. We have seen the harvest and the work that needs to be done, and our church will continue to strive and pray to be the church God wants us to be: impacting and influencing our home, West Philadelphia, and then the world with the love and saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.