Emmanuel Presbyterian Church is on Harwood Road in Bedford, where Sunday worship is centered on music, scripture and prayer. It is known for pairing traditional Presbyterian worship with a varied musical program, for a long record of practical mission in the mid-cities and Fort Worth, and for an earth-care commitment recognized by the Presbyterian Church (USA). At 2701 Harwood Road, the congregation worships at 10:00 AM each Sunday, in the sanctuary or online. Its music reaches from traditional hymns and choral song to handbells, instrumental arrangements, organ and piano, and jazz musicians at Pentecost. The church also reaches beyond Sunday through free public concerts, neighborhood work, food-pantry service, lunches for people experiencing homelessness and Habitat for Humanity building projects.
From a Condemned Auditorium to Harwood Road
The church began as the First Presbyterian Church of Euless on Sunday, March 31, 1963, with 86 members and Rev. David Englehardt as pastor. For more than a year, the congregation met in a condemned school auditorium. In July 1964, it moved into a newly constructed building on Simmons Drive. The master plan called for three buildings: a sanctuary, a Christian education building and a fellowship hall. The fellowship hall was the first and only one completed on that site.
Growth in the mid-cities, the construction of Airport Freeway and the opening of DFW Airport pointed development north of Simmons Drive. In August 1974, the church sold its property to the city of Euless for a park, while Presbytery secured acreage on Harwood Road in Bedford. From August 1974 until July 1976, worship took place in a former bank building near the Wilshire area of Euless on Highway 10. The junior-high class met in the bank's vault.
A committee solicited names for the new church. Lois Sieverling proposed Emmanuel, meaning God with us, and the congregation chose it. The Euless steeple was moved to the new building and now stands in a grass island outside the front doors. The first service at Harwood Road was held on August 8, 1976, with about 40 people attending. An addition dedicated on February 14, 1982, included SoRelle Hall, classrooms, the pastor's office and a kitchen. A Christian education building followed in May 1989. By the end of 1985, the congregation had 351 active members.
By 1995, active membership had reached 474. A rift in the congregation in the late 1990s brought a loss of members, and the active roll stood at 243 by 2005. The sanctuary was renovated in 2004 and 2005, with an enlarged table area and new carpet, chairs, sound system and organ. Emmanuel's history therefore includes both difficult seasons and a continuing commitment to worship, education and service.
Sunday Worship at 10:00 AM
Every Sunday at 10:00 AM, Emmanuel offers in-person worship at the Harwood Road sanctuary and an online service built around music, scripture and prayer. Visitors can attend with whatever level of formality suits them: Sunday mornings range from casual clothing to suits and ties, and all are welcome. Children are welcome in worship, and free child care is provided during each Sunday service. The sanctuary is also easy to enter with a wheelchair or walker.
Communion is served monthly on the first Sunday and at special services during the year. The Christian year is also marked by services for Christmas Eve, Ash Wednesday, Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. Emmanuel expresses its welcome simply as All are Welcome. A Sunday church breakfast begins at 8:45 AM in SoRelle Hall before the 10:00 AM worship service.
The live service is available through Emmanuel's YouTube worship channel, and a collection of previous services preserves the breadth of congregational music. Choral and handbell pieces, organ and piano, soloists, instrumental groups, jazz and seasonal cantatas appear alongside Scripture readings and sermons. Guest clergy and lay readers occasionally lead services, while the permanent pastor and music leaders provide continuity. The collection also gives people who cannot attend in person an opportunity to experience the church's music and preaching.
Hymns, Handbells, Organ and Jazz
Emmanuel's music ministries are overseen by its Music Director and occupy a central place in congregational life. The service combines several distinct sounds:
- Traditional hymns sung by Emmanuel's Chancel Choir
- Pieces performed by the Handbell Choir
- Instrumental arrangements by the ensemble Grace Notes
- Jazz musicians at Pentecost
- Organ and piano music on Sunday mornings from organist Dr. Tak Yan Yeung
Music Director Brittney Axton is a Baylor University graduate with a Bachelor of Music in church music with an emphasis in voice. Her musical path began at age 10 with handbells, and she has led children's music, sung in choirs, served as a worship leader for a traditional service and assisted with college worship and large choral ensembles. She rings with Concert Bells of Fort Worth and serves as the North Texas representative on the Handbell Musicians of America Area 9 board.
Dr. Tak Yan Yeung is a pianist, educator, organist, harpsichordist, scholar and promoter of classical music. He has performed with the Northwest Chamber Orchestra, the Texas Christian University Symphony Orchestra and the Azusa Pacific University Symphony Orchestra. Yeung teaches at the University of Dallas and Tarrant County College Northwest and owns a piano studio serving the Dallas-Fort Worth area. At Emmanuel, he serves as organist and contributes organ and piano music to Sunday worship.
Yeung also founded Concerts on Harwood, Emmanuel's free public classical music series. The concerts bring local performing musicians into the sanctuary for recitals featuring piano, flute and chamber music. Past programs have included a piano quartet, a flute choir, a piano duet and a flute recital. Admission is free, and the series is organized under Yeung's leadership. It gives the church's musical life a public dimension beyond Sunday worship.
Learning Together After Church
Faith formation at Emmanuel is intentionally multigenerational. Church school classes serve all ages, and several adult and intergenerational classes meet after worship to study the Bible. Keys to the Bible gathers each Sunday at 11:15 AM for an in-depth look at one biblical book over several weeks. A youth-and-adult gathering also centers on prayer, a shared devotional and time to check in, while children and youth are invited into Bible study, book club and other church activities.
On Tuesday evenings at 7:30 PM, the church's online Bible study looks ahead at the text for the next Sunday's worship. This makes the weekly cycle conversational: the passage is read in advance, discussed together and then carried into the Sunday service.
Book Mavens, the church's Sunday evening book club, meets online at 7:00 PM for a discussion of a different book each month. Leaders and selections rotate, and church funds purchase the books for participants. The group reads history, social justice, world cultures, graphic novels, fantasy, historical fiction, middle-grade fiction and nonfiction. Games, projects, writing and research are part of its method. Members also follow a group covenant, mark the end of a month's reading with a themed treat and occasionally take their literary interests into the community with activities such as a story path along the church walking trail and a train trip to Fort Worth. Youth and adults belong, and newcomers are welcome for a single month or longer.
Social fellowship follows its own rhythms. Ruth Fellowship meets for dinner at a local restaurant on the third Monday of each month, and Lois Circle gathers for lunch at a local restaurant on the first Thursday. Men's Breakfast begins at 7:00 AM every Tuesday, while Men of the Church shares a monthly dinner. A Creation Care class also meets after worship to explore ways of responding to environmental needs. These groups give adults, youth and children several ways to study and share life together.
Serving Greenway, Fort Worth and the Block Around Emmanuel
Service is not a separate activity at Emmanuel; it is part of the church's identity. Its continuing mission work includes Habitat for Humanity building projects, intergenerational mission trips, service to the NorthEast Emergency Distribution food pantry, partnership with the Greenway neighborhood through the 6:8 Project and lunches for people experiencing homelessness at Presbyterian Night Shelter.
Emmanuel's Habitat commitment is long-running. Volunteers began participating with Trinity Habitat for Humanity in 1995, and the church has continued helping build one house each year. In 1999 and 2000, Emmanuel fully funded the projects and supplied all the volunteers. The church now partners with other area Presbyterian congregations on annual builds. The work supports safe, affordable homeownership for low-income families in Trinity Habitat's four-county area. Partner families contribute 200 hours of sweat equity and also take part in homeowner education covering budgeting, legal and safety issues, financial stability and care of a home, yard, neighborhood and city.
The 6:8 Project began in 2013 in Fort Worth's Greenway neighborhood. Its mission is to do justice, love kindness and walk humbly, a phrase drawn from Micah 6:8. Emmanuel sponsors a summer lunch program and enrichment activities for neighborhood children. Volunteers take part in neighborhood cleanups twice a year, join partners in revitalization work on Martin Luther King Jr. Day and support a scholarship fund for students entering college or trade school. The project extends both fellowship and practical help beyond the church grounds.
Food-pantry support takes the form of collecting needed goods for NEED and working with its distribution network. The congregation prepares and delivers lunches at Presbyterian Night Shelter, and intergenerational mission trips add another avenue for service. A Wednesday Work Crew gathers at 8:30 AM to maintain the church building and assist office staff. The group works together over breakfast snacks and coffee before scattering to its tasks.
Smaller neighborhood gestures are part of the same practical welcome. In 2022, the church built and decorated a Little Free Library with paintings and rocks. Because Emmanuel sits near an elementary school and a junior-high school, the library was designed for readers of every age. A dog-treat box on the north side of the walking path gives people passing with their dogs a small reason to pause, and safety reflectors make it easier to find after dark. These details reflect a church that treats its surrounding block not only as a place of worship, but as a place of daily contact.
A Certified Earth Care Congregation
Emmanuel has been a certified PCUSA Earth Care Congregation since 2011 and was one of the first two congregations in Texas to receive that certification. The church renews the certification annually. Earth care is considered across the life of the congregation, from worship and facilities to education, outreach and committee work.
A Green team has served since 2008, and a Creation Care class meets after church to look for ways to help the environment. This commitment belongs to the church's longer mission story rather than sitting apart from it: environmental concern shapes worship and facilities, while service also addresses food access, housing and neighborhood life.
Leadership, Belonging and a Welcome That Works
The church's pastoral leadership is anchored by Rev. Dr. Whitney Wilkinson Arreche, who became permanent pastor in October 2023 after serving as transitional pastor from March and being selected through a national search. She earned a Bachelor of Science from Texas A&M University, a Master of Divinity from Columbia Theological Seminary and a Doctor of Theology from Duke University. Her dissertation examined race, theology, money and the language of reconciliation. Before Emmanuel, she served as a solo pastor in rural North Carolina and as a mission associate in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
Arreche serves as chairperson of the Presbyterian Church (USA) General Assembly Committee for Ecumenical and Interfaith Engagement and on the Faith and Order Convening Table of the National Council of Churches. She has written for The Christian Century, Political Theology Network and Presbyterian Outlook, and contributed to Liberating Church: A 21st Century Hush Harbor Manifesto. She is also part of a cohort for the Fellowship for Protestant Ethics, a collaboration of pastors, scholars and activists. Her work extends through writing and teaching on faith, justice and reconciliation while remaining centered on pastoral connection and care.
Ministerial leadership is shared through elders and deacons. Elders participate in Christian education, evangelism, facility, finance and stewardship interpretation, mission, nominating, personnel, social justice and worship committees. Deacons serve in congregational care, hospitality and fellowship. These assignments make room for the church's teaching, welcome and service to be shared responsibilities rather than the work of one office.
Belonging is also a practiced part of church life. The recurring Belonging Class offers a structured way to explore membership and understand what joining the church involves. Visitors encounter a similarly concrete welcome through free child care, a sanctuary usable with a wheelchair or walker and a Sunday morning in which casual clothing and suits and ties share the same room. Emmanuel's welcome is expressed not only in words but through the practical arrangements that shape participation in worship.
Emmanuel's Continuing Story
Emmanuel's story runs from 86 people in a condemned Euless auditorium to a congregation gathered around the moved steeple on Harwood Road. Its worship combines Presbyterian tradition with the immediacy of handbells, organ, piano and jazz. Its learning groups draw children, youth and adults into the same biblical conversation, and its service reaches from a weekly work crew and local food pantry to Greenway, Presbyterian Night Shelter and Habitat builds.
Those connections are tangible in the life of the Bedford church: a 10:00 AM sanctuary filled with song and prayer, first-Sunday Communion, free child care, a wheelchair-accessible worship space, classical concerts open to the public and a green-congregation commitment renewed year after year. Emmanuel Presbyterian continues to hold together worship, learning, music, belonging and service on Harwood Road.