First Mennonite Church of Philadelphia

Prayers requested for Hattie Minnis, the widow of former Reverend Carlton Minnis who pastored Second Mennonite Church of Philadelphia through 2001. She recently had a stroke after her 91st birthday and took a turn for the worse. First Menno was the 1st inner city Mennonite Church founded in 1865 and Second Menno was founded around 1905 with help from our church. As north Philly changed, 1st Menno decided to move a few miles north closer to many members who were moving in 1963. 2nd Menno stayed and made a transition to being the 1st inner city minority run Mennonite Church.

4 Grand Pianos playing sacred & secular Christmas music. Live recording in a church in Texas along with pipe organ and vocalists.

Liberty Ministries is a local prison ministry in Montgomery County PA. Here is their 2020 on-line replacement for the annual fundraiser banquet. Our church is listed in the video as a supporter. Our semi-retired p/t pastor, Glenn Alderfer was one of the founders of Liberty Ministries several decades ago. This Sunday, Nov 8, 2020 Glenn will be bringing a Liberty Ministries "graduate" with a testimony. https://www.youtube.com/watch

Our guest speaker on Sep 27, 2020 at 10AM will be Joey Perez, former leader of the 1970's Philadelphia Zulu gang and now an evangelist. He is a friend of a retired minister, Glenn, who preaches at our church usually twice a month and previously was a founder and leader of Liberty Ministries, a prison ministry at the Graterford/ Phoenix Prison that now has a men's and women's half way house and 6 thrift stores.

Some clever covid church humor!

Saturday May 16, 2020 at noon Lore Durham, age 89 and a member of our church for over 70 years will be laid to rest at Forest Hills Cemetery located at Byberry Rd & Philmont Ave at noon. Lore loved music and singing traditional hymns so here is a tribute from a member of the Korean Evangelical Church of Philadelphia that has joint services with First Mennonite. There will be a memorial service at First Mennonite sometime in the next couple months..

Lore Durham during her 70+ years at First Mennonite was often a singer. Here she was on Easter 2017 at age 86. As of today she is singing in a choir of angels.

Lore Durham, age 89 and a 70 year member of the church passed away on Saturday, May 9, 2020. She beat cancer 2 times in her life but heart problems became critical in the past 2 weeks. She wanted to be at home with family and friends and was home on hospice for less that 2 days. She was the church secretary in the 1950's down in north Philly and remained an active member and leader over many decades. In the early 2000's she became treasurer for a couple years until cancer made that impossible. She beat cancer and lived on her own up to those last few days when heart failure became severe. She was at church at the last service on March 8, 2020 before the corona virus shutdown and she read the scripture verses.

I just found out that Jack Founds, who did some handyman repairs at our church in early or mid 2000's passed away. John F. Founds Jr., "Jack," of Huntingdon Valley passed away Sunday, April 19, 2020. He was 82. He graduated from Bensalem High School, where he met and later married Nancy Miller (RIP) at the Huntingdon Valley United Methodist Church. Jack had been a longtime attendee of Calvary Chapel Philadelphia. He was a part of many Christian ministries during his life. At ...church he worked with the youth and operated the sound system. Jack traveled to help people in New Orleans, Kentucky, Maine and Russia - making lifelong friendships along the way. He loved to garden and was a natural handyman, making that a third career prior to retirement. For the last several years Jack was challenged with Alzheimer's and lived at Artis Senior Living of Huntingdon Valley, a Memory Care home.

Today is the birthday of a Mennonite missionary who died on the Titanic. Bob Gerhart, the chairman of our church board and leader of AMAC, the Alliance of Mennonite Evangelical Congregations, is a retired pastor from the same church that she attended.

Happy Easter. The lord has risen and saved all of us.. Thank you dear God for giving us your son to save the world!

TBN is right now (1:00) showing the recorded theater performance "Jesus" from the Sight & Sound Theater production in Lancaster PA. Members of our church were there and saw this production live a couple years ago. Most of their shows are built around 1 small part of the Bible but this production was the whole new Testament.

Today is the 1st of 2 (or more) scheduled Sunday cancellations of service of our combined services of 1st Menno (Grace Bible) and the Korean Evangelical Church of Phila, While we all support a 100% maximum effort by the world's best medical scientists to quickly find vaccines and cures for the corona virus, we also believe in the power of prayer. God and God alone can perform miracles. Here is our organist playing the newer hymn, "God and God Alone" a few month's ago at our church.

Our church has for years supported Liberty Ministries, a prison ministry working in Montgomery County PA. Pastor Glenn Alderfer, a retired minster who now preaches 1 or 2 times a month at our church was one of the founders of Liberty Ministries. They have several thrift stores in central and west side of MontCo and now will have a large new store serving thrift store customers in east MontCo, lower Bucks and northeast Philly. This store in Feasterville was previously Impact Thrift and Heaven's Treasure Thrift Store that closed a year ago.

At church today, our organist played a newer song for the offertory, written by Steve Green in 1994. He just wrote the music out yesterday. Song was recently picked nationally as one of the 15 favorite hymns and is the newest one on that list. God & God Alone. Played on our church's old 1980's Wurlitzer living room theatre style organ

I'm shocked to just learn that the original building of the First Mennonite Church of Philadelphia built in 1882 in North Philly is now being demolished. Our church sold the building to a Pentecostal church back around 1963 when our church built a smaller country church just outside of far northeast Philly in Huntingdon Valley. The old building was placed on a historic registrar a few years ago and some Mennonite historic organizations were going to help as the existing Pentecostal church could not afford to maintain the building. We do not know what happened to bring on demolition.

Dock Woods (Mennonite) Community in Lansdale hosted a party on May 1, 2019 for all MontCo residents over 100 years old. Our church's organist & treasurer was there playing tuba with the Mummers All-Stars combo.

Over the past several months the Rockhill Mennonite Church in Telford merged into its tenant church, Ridgeline Community Church. Rockhill, a 200+ year old church in the Franconia Mennonite Conference had a small older congregation. Their tenant church is less than 20 years old and is associated with the Southern Baptist Convention. The congregation is younger, active in the community and growing. They began joint services in early 2018 and the Rockhill members loved working with Ridgeline. The merger vote was near unanimous.