On Mainland Road in Harleysville, a white church set among the rolling fields of Towamencin Township has opened its doors to neighbors for nearly two centuries. Christ Lutheran Church, a congregation of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, lives by a short three-part motto: Welcoming all with grace, Worshiping God through praise, Witnessing Christ through service. It is a place where the rhythms of a small-town congregation, with Sunday worship, a children's playgroup, a food pantry, a bowling league, and Zumba nights, share the calendar with the wider mission of the Lutheran church in southeastern Pennsylvania.
Sunday worship at 9:30
Worship is the weekly center of life at Christ Lutheran. A single Sunday service is held at 9:30 AM in the sanctuary at 2211 Mainland Road, and the service is also livestreamed on the congregation's YouTube channel so that members at home can join in. Holy Communion is celebrated every week, and all who believe in Jesus are invited to the Lord's table.
Visitors are greeted as full participants. A kid-friendly Prayer-Ground is set aside in the sanctuary for young worshipers who want to wiggle, and activity bags and coloring pages sit near the coat rack. The service follows a traditional Lutheran pattern of Word and Sacrament, with music that pulls on the organ, piano, and sometimes a band. The Sanctuary Choir, vocalists, and instrumentalists offer gifts of music each week, and an orchestra joins in for special services like Christmas and Easter. An elevator serves the worship space, and a listening-assist device is available in the sanctuary for those who need it.
Faith Formation for all ages follows the service, so a Sunday morning at Christ Lutheran often stretches from worship into Sunday school, confirmation class, and conversation over coffee.
Faith formation for children and youth
Faith formation is led by Karolin Brechbill, the Director of Faith Formation, and reaches from toddlers through high school seniors. The program runs September through May on a rotational calendar: the first Sunday of the month is a class with Pastor Matthew Finney, the second is Confirmation (with a new adults' track offered alongside the youth class), the third is multi-generational learning that revisits Old Testament stories, and the fourth is a special event, service project, or designated fellowship hour.
Confirmation is a two-year program for students twelve and up, with classes held on second Sundays from 10:30 AM to noon, October through May. Students may begin in seventh or eighth grade and are confirmed on Pentecost Sunday of their second year. First Holy Communion instruction is offered to all fifth graders in the spring, and students receive their first communion at the evening worship on Holy Thursday.
For the youngest children, Little Lights Playgroup is a free, six-week program for ages one through five and their caregivers. Held Tuesdays or Wednesdays from 10:00 to 11:00 AM, each session includes music, story time, crafts, and free play. The program has become a popular doorway into the congregation for young families in the Harleysville area.
Youth Group serves students in grades six through twelve with three emphases: spiritual growth, volunteerism and service, and relationship building. The year includes a fall Jr. High retreat at Bear Creek Camp, a Christmas intergenerational dinner, a winter retreat at Camp Men-O-Lan, a Youth Sunday when teens lead worship, the ELCA National Youth Gathering, and service opportunities such as the Rise Against Hunger meal-packaging event held each September. All volunteers and staff who work with children and youth are screened with Pennsylvania State Police and child-abuse background checks, with FBI fingerprinting for paid staff.
The Shepherd's Shelf: feeding the North Penn and Indian Valley
Hunger ministry is written into the congregation's identity. The Shepherd's Shelf Emergency Food Pantry is housed at Christ Lutheran and distributes food three times a week: Monday and Wednesday evenings from 6:30 to 8:00 PM, and Tuesday mornings from 10:00 to 11:00 AM. The pantry serves neighbors in the North Penn and Indian Valley communities and is staffed by volunteers from the congregation and the wider area. A small clothing closet, also called Shepherd's Shelf, is part of the same ministry.
Steph Sharkey serves as the Food Pantry Administrator, and a dedicated Shepherd's Shelf ministry team, chaired by Sharkey with Rick Foxx as council representative, oversees the work. Donations of food, time, and money are welcomed; the team meets on the first Thursday of each month.
The pantry is a continuation of a hunger ministry that goes back to 2004, when then-pastor Thomas Kadel helped the congregation open the original cupboard. In 2024 the Holiday Marketplace, an annual craft and vendor fair that draws more than forty artisans to the church grounds, chose Todi's Place of Hope - a new homeless shelter in Lansdale run by RHD Montgomery County Homeless Services - as the beneficiary of its proceeds.
Life together on the campus
Christ Lutheran's building and grounds are shared with the wider community in ways large and small. The campus amenities include an elevator to the worship space, a listening-assist device in the sanctuary, the Pastor Weaver Social Hall, a playground, a basketball net, a pavilion, and a walking path. Outside groups meet here throughout the week:
- Zumba with Tara Brehm is offered Monday nights from 7:00 to 8:00 PM and Thursdays from 6:00 to 7:00 PM, with sessions that run monthly and a Zoom option for those who prefer to dance at home.
- Weight Watchers meets on Saturday mornings with doors opening at 8:00 AM.
- The American Red Cross holds several blood drives each year at the church.
- The Holiday Marketplace, held each November, fills the parking lot with more than forty vendors, food trucks, raffle baskets, a visit from Santa, and homemade holiday pies.
- Two co-ed bowling teams sponsored by the church roll on Tuesday evenings from September through May.
- Team CLC Cycling brings together members, non-members, and friends for group rides, with several members also riding in the MS 150 City to Shore.
Inside the congregation, the Proverbs 31 Women's Group gathers monthly for Bible study, service projects, fellowship, and fun, with Steph Sharkey as the contact. The Worship and Music Ministry Team, chaired by Director of Worship and Music Michael Hillegas, plans the seasons of worship alongside organist Beverly Stover. Ministry teams in faith formation, communications, property, social ministry, finance and stewardship, mutual ministry, welcome, cemetery, and youth ministry give members many ways to plug in, each meeting on a regular monthly or quarterly schedule.
What we believe
As a congregation of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod, Christ Lutheran teaches that God loves beyond human understanding and is at work restoring and reconciling the world through Jesus Christ. The congregation's own statement of belief, drawn from scripture and the Lutheran Confessions, centers on the Bible as the inspired Word of God; on Jesus as the Son of God who reconciles all things through the cross; on salvation by grace through faith; and on the call to welcome, worship, and witness. The full statement names the Great Commission to make disciples of all nations, baptizing and teaching, and closes with Jesus' words: be merciful, just as God is merciful.
The church is part of the wider work of Lutheran World Relief and the ELCA's Disaster Response, and its membership in the Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod connects it to ministries and gatherings across the region.
Almost two centuries in Towamencin Township
Christ Lutheran Church began in September 1832, when Frederick Wampole was appointed to receive the money subscribed for building a Lutheran church in what was then a quiet corner of Montgomery County. A site was chosen on the great road called Sumneytown Road, and Isaac Wampole laid the cornerstone in the winter of 1832-1833, assisted by master stonemason John Dixey. Sealed in the cornerstone were an English Bible, a German-language hymnal, Martin Luther's Catechism, the German Reformed Catechism, and a list of dignitaries including President Andrew Jackson and Pennsylvania Governor George Wolf. The original building was completed in the summer of 1838 at a cost of $2,178.64.
The first pastor, the Reverend Jacob Wampole, also served Lutheran congregations in Chester County and in Limerick and Trappe, and refused a salary during his tenure. After a difficult first decade, the congregation grew steadily, and in 1912 a new church building was consecrated on property purchased from Michael Fritz. The old building was sold at public sale for a profit of $152.40. Services were held in both German and English through the autumn of 1918, when the congregation voted to worship only in English.
In 1919 the congregation called seminary student Homer A. Weaver as pastor. He would serve for forty-eight years, sharing the role at first with Grace Lutheran in Hatfield before dedicating himself to Christ Lutheran in 1946. Under his leadership, Weaver Fellowship Hall was built in 1963. A succession of pastors followed: Russell L. Brubaker, Jr. (1967-1972), who oversaw the move to a council-and-teams governance structure and the election of the first woman to Church Council in 1969; Richard D. Stephens (1972-2000), under whose twenty-eight years the congregation grew in size and mission and welcomed its first associate pastors; and Thomas E. Kadel, who became senior pastor in 2001 and opened the Shepherd's Shelf Food Cupboard in 2004. After Kadel's retirement in 2015, Serena Sellers was installed as pastor in 2017 and led the congregation through the pandemic years and an expanded ministry to the homeless before her pastorate concluded in 2024.
Matthew Finney now serves as Senior Pastor, continuing a tradition of almost two hundred years of looking forward without losing sight of the present.
Joining in
Visitors who want to attend a service or learn more can come to 2211 Mainland Road, Harleysville, on any Sunday morning at 9:30, watch the livestream on YouTube, or call the church office at 215-256-8738. Online giving is available through the congregation's Vanco Simply Giving portal. Those who want to serve can sign up with any of the ministry teams through the church's online action form, volunteer at the Shepherd's Shelf, or join one of the congregational groups such as the Proverbs 31 Women's Group, the bowling league, or Team CLC Cycling. A facility request form is also available for those who wish to reserve space for meetings or events.