On a quiet stretch of Apples Church Road in Lower Saucon Township, just south of Bethlehem, a stone-and-stucco church building has been gathering Lutherans for nearly two centuries. Known locally as Apples Church and officially as New Jerusalem Evangelical Lutheran Church, the congregation is part of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the Northeastern Pennsylvania Synod, and it is the home of the Community Food Pantry for the Hellertown area. Its motto, Rooted in Christ, Serving in Love, shows up on the doors, the newsletter, and the bulletins, and a banner above the front page puts it plainly: All are welcome as they are!
Sunday Worship and Saturday Evenings
Sunday morning worship is the heart of life at New Jerusalem. The 10:00 a.m. service is led by Pastor Lisa Borrell and the church's music director, Edward L. Walakovits, with the congregation joining in liturgical song, responsive prayer, the reading of Scripture, and the celebration of Holy Communion each week. The service blends a variety of worship styles, and visitors are invited to share in the bread and cup as they feel comfortable. After worship, coffee hour takes place in the Upper Room.
For those who cannot be present in person, the Sunday service is livestreamed through the church's YouTube channel, and recordings are also available there for later viewing. A second, more informal service is offered once a month on the first Saturday at 4:30 p.m., where members and friends gather to hear the Word, share in the Lord's Supper, and connect with one another. The Saturday gathering is held subject to seasonal adjustments, and the calendar lists the current dates.
Music That Leads the Liturgy
Music has been part of New Jerusalem's worship since the first pipe organ was installed by Heintzelman of Allentown and dedicated on September 30, 1849. A 1922 rebuild by C. H. Durner cost $3,500; a Fritsche pipe organ followed in 1958. Today Edward L. Walakovits, an organist and choir director with more than thirty years of experience, leads the congregation from the keyboard and the chancel. Ed brings a working knowledge of liturgy and choral styles to the role, drawing on training at Moravian College, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts in Finance with a minor in Music, and an ear for developing and motivating choir members. Choir rehearsals are held on Wednesday evenings at 6:30 p.m., and all voices and skill levels are welcome to join.
Christian Education for All Ages
The church treats Christian education as a year-round ministry, not a season.
Children's Sunday School meets from 8:45 to 9:30 a.m. on Sundays, October through May, for children in Kindergarten through fifth grade. The curriculum combines games, science, art, cooking, and thoughtful discussion as children explore the life and teachings of Jesus. Registration is open year-round - even visiting children can sign up by emailing Marianne Zelner and Sarah Parente.
Sunday Morning Bible Chat runs at the same hour, September through May, offering a casual, Bible-based discussion that welcomes adults and older youth (sixth grade and up). Topics vary from week to week, so newcomers can drop in whenever they can.
Confirmation Classes are offered on Sunday evenings twice per month, October through May, for youth in sixth grade and up who are ready to be received as registered members of the congregation. Pastor Lisa and Sharon Bender coordinate the current class schedule.
Youth Group is open to students in sixth through twelfth grades and meets on the third Sunday of August, October, December, February, and April - with special events and trips filling in the other months. Adult leaders Caroline Skuba, Robin Rooth-Fogel, and Sarah Parente organize gatherings, and friends are always welcome. The group has also taken on service projects, including a plastic bag collection aimed at earning a NexTrex bench for the church grounds.
Apple's Preschool
Apple's Preschool is housed in a bright, spacious room in New Jerusalem's education wing and is open to children ages three through five. Its philosophy is to let each child discover their fullest potential as a caring, creative, and independent learner in an atmosphere enriched with Christian emphasis, with the daily rhythm balancing morning meeting, structured play, a teacher-assisted craft, clean-up, snack, circle time, story, movement, and listening.
Director and head teacher Miss Danae, supported by teacher's assistants Miss Eileen and Miss Nicole, runs two programs. The 3 Year-Old Class meets Mondays and Tuesdays, with morning sessions from 9:00 to 11:30 a.m. and afternoon sessions from 12:30 to 3:00 p.m. The Pre-K Class meets Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays in the same morning and afternoon windows. Field trips, holiday programs, a closing program, and a family picnic bookend the school year, and the classroom is handicap accessible. The preschool maintains its own Facebook page for families.
The Community Food Pantry for the Hellertown Area
New Jerusalem Lutheran Church is the home base for the Community Food Pantry for the Hellertown Area, which serves neighbors across the Saucon Valley School District. Food and monetary donations arrive from local congregations, community groups, and individuals, and the pantry partners with Second Harvest Food Bank for bulk supplies. Distribution happens on the third and fourth Saturday of each month, using a shopping model in which clients pick their own groceries. Donation drop-offs are taken at the ramp entrance on the third and fourth Fridays from 9:00 to 11:00 a.m. Volunteers are always welcome to help unload, staff grocery stations, and walk alongside clients as they shop. The pantry can be reached at 267-375-9696, and Tammy Welch coordinates the effort.
NJ Fosters Love and the Freezer Meal Program
The NJ Fosters Love ministry was started by a team of members who wanted to make New Jerusalem a Foster and Adoptive Friendly Church. The group has built a Foster Closet from annual Fill the Bag donations, partnered with LV Foster Care to respond to weekly needs, and run a KIND diaper drive each May for the county Children and Youth offices. In August, the ministry delivers bags of school supplies to Children and Youth offices in Northampton and Lehigh Counties.
Its newest arm is a Freezer Meal Program. Volunteers cook casseroles, lasagnas, chicken potpies, and other family-style dishes in 9x13 pans provided by the church, stocking a freezer that always holds about ten meals. The meals rotate out to local foster families and to families in crisis. Cooks, drivers, and new ideas are always welcome through Tina Young.
Food for Friends and Other Hands-On Outreach
New Jerusalem also partners with Food for Friends, a Quakertown-based program run by Richland Friends Church that has been feeding anyone who walks through the door since 1998. Six volunteer groups share the work of providing a hot meal on the second, fourth, and fifth Wednesday of each month, and the New Jerusalem group covers six dinner events a year, sometimes sending out as many as 150 to-go meals in a single evening.
Inside the building, the congregation also operates a Meal Train, coordinated by Sharon Bender, that prepares meals for members in times of illness, injury, bereavement, or new birth. Pastoral visitors from the prayer group pray daily for personal needs as well as larger community concerns, and a long-running prayer shawl ministry knits and crochets shawls that are blessed and given to anyone experiencing a difficult season. The congregation also supports ELCA Disaster Response and Lutheran World Relief with regular financial gifts, particularly during major relief campaigns.
The Food Bank Committee and the Parish Network
The Food Bank Committee oversees the day-to-day running of the Community Food Pantry and keeps the lines of communication open with Second Harvest and the network of local churches that keep the shelves stocked. Other working groups that keep the parish humming include the Altar Guild, Property Committee, Church and Community Life, Finance, Music and Worship, Christian Education, Cards, a Crafting circle, the Book Club (which meets every other month in the conference room), and the Connection Club, a monthly inter-generational gathering. The Prime Timers fellowship group, for folks aged fifty-five and over, meets on the first Tuesday of the month for food and fellowship. The Card Club gathers on Thursdays at 1:00 p.m. in the Conference Room for Pinochle and conversation. Quilters meet Wednesday mornings at 8:30 a.m. in the conference room on the lower level.
What the Church Believes
New Jerusalem describes itself as a Christian community that authentically gathers together and welcomes all to experience God through the bread and cup of Communion and the hearing and sharing of the Word. The congregation's mission statement calls the church to act as the body of Christ to one another and the community, welcoming all to worship and fellowship, supporting neighbors in need locally and globally, and teaching all ages about the love of God through the Gospel. The vision statement asks the congregation to grow as a meeting place for all who would join the family of God, providing lifelong opportunities for learning, service, and growth in the faith of Jesus Christ, while deepening the call to love neighbor and serve the Lord with compassion and grace.
The full Nicene Creed is printed in the bulletin and recited in worship. The church confesses one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth; one Lord Jesus Christ, eternally begotten of the Father, who for us and for our salvation came down from heaven and was made man, was crucified under Pontius Pilate, and rose again on the third day; and the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son. The congregation confesses one holy catholic and apostolic Church, one Baptism for the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come.
Two Centuries in the Saucon Valley
The earliest record the church holds is a deed dated June 17, 1791, for one acre and eight perches of land given by John Apple and his wife on December 8, 1783, for the use of a school, for the maintenance and support of a school, and in repairing and maintaining their lot and house of public worship, grounds and schoolhouse or houses. That same lot already held an accustomed schoolhouse and meeting house. On Sunday, May 18, 1834 - during the second year of Andrew Jackson's second term - the cornerstone of the present New Jerusalem church was laid. Andrew Weiss and Joseph Ehrhart of the Reformed congregation and Peter Leith and John Apple of the Lutheran congregation led the project, which cost $5,566.24. The building was dedicated to the glory of God on December 13 and 14, 1834.
Land and buildings grew with the congregation. Eighty-four perches were added in 1848, then another acre and sixty-one perches in 1854 for $172.64. The old pews were replaced and the nave and chancel frescoed in 1873, with a re-dedication on August 9, 1873. The fiftieth anniversary was observed in 1884, and a new roof was added in August 1928. The 100th anniversary brought five days of celebration in May 1934. In 1939 the basement was excavated, the floors cemented, and electric lighting installed; a driveway and parking area were paved in 1948; and the church was repainted and redecorated the next year. From 1950 to 1956 the floors and pews were refinished, a new heating system installed, maroon carpeting laid, a well dug, and restrooms and a kitchen added.
In 1949 the Sunday Church School program had the painting The Ascension installed above and behind the pulpit at a cost of well over $600. The congregation's part in the Coopersburg Parish, which included St. Paul's Blue Church, St. John's in Coopersburg, and Union Chapel in Center Valley, ended in 1949; a new parsonage followed, dedicated on August 20, 1950, at a cost of $16,500. The need for larger educational facilities led the council to break ground on a new wing on December 10, 1967; the cornerstone was laid on September 15, 1968. A stained glass window, Christ in Gethsemane, designed and made by Lou Barkley Dillon, now stands between the nave and the sacristy.
The congregation's calendar still follows the historic round of the church year, with Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, the Baptism and Transfiguration of Our Lord, Ash Wednesday, Lent, Palm/Passion Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter, Pentecost, Holy Trinity, All Saints' Day, and Christ the King, each marked by its own appointed liturgical color.
Pastors of New Jerusalem
The Rev. Lisa Borrell has served as pastor since 2020. A native of Allentown who knows the Lehigh Valley well, she came to New Jerusalem after serving as Pastor of Christ, Lower Saucon, and as the congregation's interim. She holds office hours at the church on Wednesdays and Thursdays from 10:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. and can be reached for pastoral emergencies through the church office or by email at MizLKB@aol.com.
The roll of those who have served New Jerusalem goes back to the church's founding pastor, the Rev. Henry S. Miller (1834 to 1838), and continues through the Rev. Benjamin German (1838 to 1848), the Rev. William German (1848 to 1851), the Rev. Jacob Vogelbach (1851 to 1857), the Rev. William Rath (1857 to 1886), the Rev. Elias A. Yehl (1888 to 1893), the Rev. W. W. Kistler (1894 to 1933), the Rev. Daniel D. Kistler (1933 to 1949), the Rev. Richard A. Beck (1950 to 1957), the Rev. Earl E. Zeiner (1958 to 1961), the Rev. Augustus V. Tietbohl (1962 to 1990), the Rev. Paul Nye (1990 to 1995), the Rev. Tricia McMackin (1996 to 2014), and the Rev. Lauren Applegate (2015 to 2020).
Stewardship and Giving
Electronic giving is available through Vanco Payment Solutions, allowing members to set up recurring gifts or one-time donations from a personal checking or savings account directly to the church at no cost to the giver. Contributions to a current building fund - supporting exterior painting of the church, a new ramp, and parking lot improvements - can be designated by memo, envelope, or online. Altar flowers can be sponsored for $30, or split between two sponsors at $15 each, by signing up on the sheet in the Narthex. Giant gift cards in $25, $50, and $100 denominations are available through Tina McCardle as another way to support the congregation's budget. For active membership status on the church rolls, confirmed members receive Holy Communion and give a contribution of record at least once a year, completing a Communion record slip from the pews the next time they receive the sacrament.
Visiting New Jerusalem
The church building is located at 3233 Apples Church Road, Bethlehem, PA 18015, convenient to Bethlehem, Center Valley, Coopersburg, Hellertown, the Saucon Valley, Riegelsville, and Springtown. Sunday morning worship is at 10:00 a.m., with Saturday evening worship on the first Saturday of each month at 4:30 p.m. Children's Sunday School and the Bible Chat meet before worship at 8:45 a.m. The church is pastored by Rev. Lisa Borrell, with Edward L. Walakovits directing music and Jeanette Peterson serving as office administrator. The office can be reached at 610-838-0731 or newjerelc@gmail.com, and the church's livestreamed services can be found on its YouTube channel.