On Sunday we witnessed the birth of Grace Church – Feltonville with about 50 people in attendance. This is the second site of Grace Church of Philly. The first church, Grace Church – University City, began last year March 2010 and is still a church in formation in many ways. We rejoice in what God Read more

This past Sunday night Grace Church baptized three men – a university professor with a PhD, a Vietnam veteran, and an ex-con recently released from prison. My brother John baptized the first two men. I had the opportunity to baptize the third man, Billy, who I met in prison as his counselor. Billy was probably Read more

A recent internet article degenerated when one of the posters called a well-known and much loved professor by his first name. Some who know the professor personally took offense that someone would have the audacity to call an esteemed professor by his first name. Really, has it come to this? I do not know the Read more

First, they all need a Savior. Second, they stayed at our home over the past month and are from four different countries.  As a bi-vocational church planter I was looking at some ways to help us pay the rent. One day I read an article in Forbes about airbnb.com and since we had a guestroom Read more

As we look forward to this church replant here is the proposal. It might be helpful to others and we would welcome input.  OVERALL GOAL: The intent of the following is to bring about the planting of a new multi-ethnic church in the Feltonville neighborhood of Philadelphia, building upon the history and investment of Wyoming Avenue Baptist Read more

When we moved back into Philly two years ago one of our burdens was to see churches planted in different neighborhoods. Six months ago a church in my old neighborhood in North Philly reached out for help. The church has been in existence for 120 years. The neighborhood had changed and the church had shrunk Read more

"Those of us doing urban church planting confess our obsession. We believe it is a good and God-honoring investment of lives and that it is so good that we want to persuade other to prayerfully consider the city."  Read more at the Gospel First

Urban church planting is a focus, a needed and neglected emphasis. It is not a more spiritual work than suburban church planting. In some settings urban church planting might be more challenging where there is little gospel presence, where there are fewer Christians to constitute a core group, where there are more livability issues due Read more

It is possible to mistake infatuation for the city with love for the city. Some kind of love for the city might get you to the city but it won't keep you there. Read this from the gospel first and consider coming to the city, not always to love it but to love its people Read more

My brother John wrote an outstanding blog on this topic. Here's an excerpt: “Unfortunately, in the world-wide church of Jesus Christ, Christian fellowship based on gospel essentials has been difficult to achieve. This is evident in the historic divisiveness between the two movements of Fundamentalism and New Evangelicalism.” more