Arch Street United Methodist Church stands at 55 N Broad Street on the southeast corner of Broad and Arch in Center City Philadelphia, one half block from City Hall. Founded in 1862, it is known for a Gothic church whose first chapel rose before City Hall and the Masonic Temple, radically inclusive worship, immigrant sanctuary work, and Grace Cafe, a free Sunday meal for people who are unhoused or unsheltered.
Hybrid Worship on Broad Street
Sunday worship begins at 11:00 a.m. in the sanctuary and online through Zoom. The gathering is hybrid: people may worship in the building or join the Zoom worship from home. Holy Communion is celebrated on the first Sunday of every month, and the Communion Table is open to all. Baptisms, membership appointments, and classes are available by request.
Monday's Bible study begins at noon and is also held through Zoom, allowing participants to join from a home or phone. All are welcome.
The church is at the southeast corner of Broad and Arch Streets, near the Masonic Temple and Pennsylvania Convention Center. Street parking is limited and first come, first served in front of the church and the Masonic Temple on the east side of Broad. Parking in front of the Masonic Temple is allowed unless the temple asks that the spaces be cleared. A vehicle using those spaces must display a permission placard obtained from the person staffing the chapel office. All parking rules still apply, including restrictions near fire hydrants, driveways, and accessible spaces. The church is easily reached by public transportation.
A Gothic Sanctuary Shaped by Philadelphia History
From a Rented Room to Broad and Arch
Arch Street began in 1862 when its members met in a rented room on the second floor of the German-American Trust Company at the northeast corner of Broad and Arch. Rev. Arron Rittenhouse became the first pastor. In 1864, the congregation bought the future church lot, engaged architect Addison Hutton, and laid the chapel cornerstone on July 7. The larger sanctuary was completed in November 1870. Before the purchase, the lot contained a coal yard and a seller of cemetery markers.
The sanctuary was only the second American Methodist church built in Gothic style. It seats more than 900 people, has reached capacity on many occasions, and has hosted some 40 annual conferences. In 1968, it was the setting where the Delaware and Philadelphia Annual Conferences merged to form the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference. Its position near City Hall also made it a meeting place for community organizers, unions, and activist groups.
Lincoln, Simpson, and Civic Memory
Arch Street has deep connections to Bishop Matthew Simpson, who helped found and build the congregation. When Abraham Lincoln's funeral procession passed the unfinished chapel in April 1865, Simpson gave the final address at Lincoln's funeral. Ulysses S. Grant and Julia Grant attended the 1869 wedding of Simpson's daughter Hannah after the sanctuary was completed. The sanctuary also became a center for public action when local activists held the organizing meeting for Occupy Philadelphia there in 2012.
Arch Street's ministry reached beyond worship from its beginning. In 1865, the Methodist conference approved a retirement house for older Methodists. Its first home held 25 residents, and the mission later grew into Simpson House. Among the sanctuary's later events, Duke Ellington and his orchestra performed a sacred concert in December 1971, and a restoration of the sanctuary's stained glass was completed in 2009.
Stone, Light, and Music
A plaster ceiling opens to a space above the roof and draws hot air upward, an early method of cooling the interior. The 1871 organ has 51 registers and 2,322 pipes across its great, choir, swell, and pedal sections. Above the altar, a Celtic cross was given in 1928 by Bishop Simpson's two daughters. The baptismal font was made from a column taken from the high altar of City Road Chapel in London, where John Wesley preached. Egg shaped spotlights above the altar symbolize the promise of renewed life, and images of the Trinity appear carved or plastered throughout the room.
Radical Welcome and Reconciling Ministry
The church defines its mission as loving God and neighbor by nurturing spiritual journeys, encouraging creativity in faithful service, strengthening relationships, and promoting justice. Its vision is a welcoming Christian community marked by openness, understanding, and reconciliation within the congregation and beyond it. That welcome crosses boundaries of age, racial and ethnic background, gender, sexual orientation and gender identity, economic or marital status, and physical or mental ability.
Arch Street became a reconciling congregation in 2006 and affirmed LGBTQ+ people as full members of the church. In November 2013, more than 30 clergy joined the Ceremony of Sacred Marriage for two longtime gay members. The sanctuary that has hosted denominational gatherings and public organizing also makes room for weddings, baptism, membership, and shared worship.
In 2016, Arch Street became a sanctuary congregation and welcomed Javier Flores into its space while he sought a fair review of his visa application. He lived in the church for almost a year. That history gives the church's immigrant rights work a direct local context.
Grace Cafe and The Center
Grace Cafe is a free and inclusive community meal held on Sunday evenings. Its roots reach back more than 50 years to a formerly unhoused congregation member making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in the church. The meal has grown into a service providing warm, nutritious food to as many as 200 people on a night. This direct care has been built through a personal and trusting relationship with people who are unhoused and unsheltered.
The Center-Philadelphia grew out of Arch Street's outreach ministries and became its own nonprofit organization in 2018. In 2020, the church building opened as a center offering direct services. Monday through Thursday, those services include showers, laundry, case management, food, and a clothing closet. A wellness space developed with nurses in 2016 is part of the longer history of care.
Giving supports Grace Cafe, restoration and beautification, internal operations including services and personnel, and local advocacy.
Sanctuary, POWER, and Native American Awareness
Arch Street's sanctuary commitment takes shape through its partnership with New Sanctuary Movement of Philadelphia, an interfaith and multicultural immigrant rights organization. The church accompanies people facing deportation, holds workshops about rights, supports immigrant participation, and has organized teams to respond when raids occur. New Sanctuary Movement also holds a general assembly every other month for campaign information and planning. Broader immigration work includes access to driver's licenses regardless of immigration status, an end to deportation raids, and preparation for community members who may be affected. Arch Street's justice organizing also promotes affordable wages, housing justice, and responsible development.
Arch Street works with more than 40 churches, parishes, synagogues, and mosques through Philadelphians Organized to Witness, Empower and Rebuild, or POWER. The coalition advocates for living wages, fair funding for Philadelphia public schools, and immigration reform.
The Native American Indian Awareness Group meets monthly for discussion and community action. Its work grows from the United Methodist Church's four year Act of Repentance for injustices against Native peoples, adopted in 2012. The group treats repentance as an ongoing change in direction and centers awareness, relationships, and action.
Women, LGBTQIA+ Fellowship, and Mission
United Women in Faith is a community of women whose purpose includes knowing God, experiencing freedom as whole persons through Jesus Christ, developing supportive fellowship, and participating in the wider mission of the church. Membership is available to any woman who chooses it, but women may attend meetings without joining. The group meets monthly in the chapel, works on mission projects, discusses books from the United Methodist Women reading program, and raises money for local and global mission. The church also has an LGBTQIA+ Fellowship, along with other groups, committees, associations, and classes available by request.
Restoring the Steeple and Center City Asset
Preserving the sanctuary has required a major capital effort. A crane inspection found conditions in the steeple that could allow marble plating to fall and damage the internal brick structure, and the city placed an unsafe condition designation on the building. Netting, scaffolding, and a sidewalk bridge were used as safety measures. The church's $6.9 million capital campaign reached its goal through the support of friends and neighbors. The campaign focused on restoring the steeple, increasing accessibility, and better equipping the building for social service to people who are unhoused and unsheltered. Removing the damaged portion would cost about as much as restoring it, while the loss of a building that predates City Hall and the Masonic Temple would remove a longtime Center City community center. The church is recognized as a contributing property in the Center City historic district.
Leadership for Worship and Justice
Rev. Hannah Adair Bonner is the church's pastor. She was ordained an elder in Philadelphia in 2012 after earning her Master of Divinity at Duke Divinity in 2008. Her advocacy includes migrant work at the Arizona and Mexico border, LGBTQ justice in the United Methodist Church, and service at both local and general church levels. She is a publicly Queer clergywoman who places justice seeking at the center of her ministry.
Music Director Samantha Herrman plans music for services, leads the choir, and sings during worship; she says a good gospel song is her favorite way to move the congregation. James Dell'Orefice serves as accompanist and brings experience as a jazz pianist and composer of jazz and religious music. Cathy Simpson serves as both lay leader and worship leader.
These ministries remain centered on Arch Street's identity: a historic Christian congregation in Center City that combines worship, radical welcome, immigrant sanctuary, organizing, and direct care within the life of one church and its partners.