A House for the Generations on South 22nd Street
Camp Hill United Methodist Church stands on South 22nd Street in the small Cumberland County borough of Camp Hill, just across the Susquehanna from Harrisburg. Members call the church by its nickname, CHUM, and describe it as a community of ordinary people in the presence of an extraordinary God learning to love as they are loved. Programming is organized by generation, with side-by-side ministries for infants through fifth graders, sixth through twelfth graders, and adults, all meeting in and around the same campus each week.
CHUM belongs to the Susquehanna Conference of The United Methodist Church. Its mission is to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world, and its stated values include expressing the love of Jesus, embracing all people and celebrating their differences, alleviating injustice, sharing out of abundance, supporting the family of God, and pursuing unity even when the way forward is debated.
Two Worship Styles Each Sunday Morning
Worship at CHUM runs back to back on Sunday mornings and offers two very different rooms in which to pray. The Traditional Celebration Worship gathers at 9:00 am in the Sanctuary and follows a more liturgical pattern, with hymns, the Sanctuary Choir, an organ, handbells, and a sermon shaped by the church calendar. The Modern New Life Worship begins at 10:15 am in the Worship Center and uses media, contemporary songs led by the New Life Praise Band, and a more informal atmosphere.
Both services are livestreamed on YouTube, and the congregation has become accustomed to greeting worshippers online as readily as those arriving at the door. Newcomers are encouraged to arrive fifteen to twenty minutes early to handle parking and a seat. Communion is open to all who love Christ, earnestly repent of their sin, and seek to live in peace with one another. People wear what feels like Sunday best to them, anything from a t-shirt to a suit and tie.
Sunday School and a fully staffed nursery are offered during both services for children from infants through fifth grade. A check-in system is used to keep children safe, and parents are welcome to keep their children in the main worship service as well.
Camp Hill Kids and Student Reverb
Children's ministry, called Camp Hill Kids, is built around the conviction that children are a vital part of the church today, not just the church of tomorrow. Programming runs from a fully staffed nursery for infants through age two, through Sunday School for ages three through fifth grade, with age-appropriate teaching, music, and activities that introduce children to following Jesus Christ. Virtual Sunday School lessons for preschool and elementary ages premiere on YouTube on Wednesdays at noon, so families can engage at home on their own schedule.
Student ministry is for sixth through twelfth graders and gathers at 6:00 pm on Sunday evenings. During the late morning service, Sunday Reverb gives the same students a chance to worship together with the congregation and then move to the Youth Chapel for a short, guided conversation about the sermon. The student ministry describes itself as a place where young people feel loved, encouraged, supported, and free to ask hard questions about the Bible.
Both Camp Hill Kids and Student Ministries operate under the congregation's Safe Sanctuaries policy, with background checks and minimum standards for those working with children and youth.
A Sanctuary Full of Music
Music is woven through almost every corner of the church. The Sanctuary Choir, led by Director of Worship Abby Gable, rehearses on Wednesday evenings from 6:30 to 8:00 pm, welcomes anyone who likes to sing from sixth grade upward, and sings in the Celebration service each week from September through May, adding two cantatas each year.
Two adult handbell choirs ring on Monday evenings in the Sanctuary. Celebration Ringers, an entry-level group, meets from 6:30 to 7:15 pm. Chancel Bells, the advanced ensemble, follows from 7:15 to 8:45 pm. Children's Choir rehearses on Sunday mornings from 10:00 to 10:30 am for ages four through fifth grade and presents a yearly Christmas pageant on Christmas Eve. Youth Bells, open to students in grades four through twelve, rehearses Sundays from 11:15 am to noon and is beginner-friendly.
The New Life Praise Band, led by Andrew Brisbin, anchors the contemporary service each week, drawing on contemporary Christian rock and modernized arrangements of traditional hymns. Janis Glosenger serves as organist. Together these ensembles give the congregation an unusually full calendar of concerts in worship and occasional community performances.
Panguma, Sierra Leone and Mission Beyond
CHUM's longest-running mission relationship is with the Panguma United Methodist Church in Sierra Leone. The partnership began in 2009 when Camp Hill UMC was asked to help support United Methodist pastors serving in Panguma, a town that had been devastated by Sierra Leone's civil war. The first mission visit took place in 2010, and the partnership, called Team Panguma, has continued since.
Initial work focused on rebuilding the United Methodist Church and parsonage in Panguma, then broadened to education, medical care, and quality-of-life projects identified together with the community elders. Today the church helps fund preschool, primary, junior secondary, and senior secondary scholarships, supports teachers pursuing university certification, and supplies materials to strengthen local schools. Mission trips are open to anyone at CHUM who is at least sixteen years old, and prayer, travel, and education-support partners all play a part.
The congregation also walks alongside two United Methodist missionaries with the General Board of Global Ministries. Miguel Mairena and Nan McCurdy serve in Puebla, Mexico, with Give Ye Them to Eat (GYTTE), a social outreach of the Methodist Church of Mexico that strengthens rural communities through training in sustainable agriculture, appropriate technologies, and straw-bale home construction that proved vital following the 2017 earthquake.
Locally, the Mission and Outreach Team coordinates larger service events such as the Rise Against Hunger food-packing event and partners with regional organizations to extend help beyond the walls of the church. A Mission Connection Card is available for anyone who wants to start a conversation about getting involved.
Faith Formation for Adults
Adults at CHUM are encouraged to keep moving along a discipleship path that the church outlines in five steps: trust Jesus, be baptized, become a professing member, join a small group, and pray. Baptism is offered at every age, and the congregation confirms youth in their own baptismal vows as they grow older. Membership is taken through a short class that ends with the option to join as a Professing Member of The United Methodist Church.
Small groups meet both in person and online, and the church encourages participation in a wide variety of formats and seasons of life. Prayer is a central practice, and prayer requests can be submitted through the Church Center app for the Prayer Team to lift up. The pastor of congregational care, Rev. Dr. Dennis Keller, coordinates hospital visits, funeral support, and emergency pastoral response; families are asked to notify the church directly since facilities no longer share that information automatically.
Sports, Preschool, and Outreach in the Wider Community
Upward Sports brings football, cheer, and basketball onto the CHUM campus each season, with Football and Cheer running from August through October and Basketball from January through mid-March. The program is run through Upward Sports, the world's largest Christian youth sports provider, and welcomes hundreds of children from the wider community each year. The church also welcomes Trunk-or-Treat each fall, hosts the Mechanicsburg Crop Walk to fight hunger, packs Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes, and partners with local ministries through the Mission and Outreach Team.
CHUM Preschool, the congregation's weekday preschool ministry, is housed in the same building and led by Jen Stoner, who serves as both Nursery and Preschool Ministry Coordinator and CHUM Preschool Director. Together the preschool, Sunday children's ministry, and student ministry create a continuous pipeline of care for families with children of every age.
The Church Center app is the church's digital front door for communication preferences, prayer requests, volunteer scheduling, online giving, and small-group sign-ups. The congregation's Overflow stewardship initiative is the framework for financial generosity, with a single combined fund that the church uses to align all resources around disciple-making.
What Camp Hill UMC Believes
CHUM teaches classic United Methodist beliefs. God is one and is revealed in three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and is at once Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer. Jesus Christ is God made human, whose life, death and resurrection demonstrates that love. The church is the body of Christ and an extension of his ministry in the world today. The Bible is the primary authority for faith and practice and is read through Scripture itself, tradition, reason, and experience. The reign of God is both a present reality and a future hope. Human beings are made in the image of God with the capacity to love, communicate, and create.
Open communion, openness to questioning, and openness in membership are part of how those beliefs are lived out at CHUM. The congregation welcomes people who are brand new to faith, returning after time away, or lifelong members, and it tries to make every door, from the parking lot to the YouTube chat, feel the same.