A Lutheran Congregation on South Ott Street
St. Timothy Lutheran Church sits at 140 South Ott Street in Allentown, Pennsylvania, just across from the open green known as the Land of Promise. A member congregation of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) within the Northeastern Pennsylvania Synod, St. Timothy has built much of its identity around outreach to its unhoused neighbors, hands-on partnerships with area nonprofits, and a long list of small groups that knit the congregation together.
"Nurtured and sustained by God's love, we are called and inspired to share this love with our neighbor, to make God's story known, and to help our neighbors near and far… so that all may experience God's love," the congregation writes. The building is handicapped accessible, and the office is open Tuesday through Friday from noon to 4 p.m.
Sunday Mornings at 10:30
Worship at St. Timothy follows a single weekly rhythm. Sunday Church School and the Adult Forum gather at 9:00 a.m., and the worship service begins at 10:30 a.m. The Glorious Day Praise Team leads worship on the first Sunday of each month, while other Sundays feature the congregation's longer-standing musicians. Classes for younger children and elementary-age students meet on the lower level of the building and follow the Sunday lectionary, while junior high and high school youth work through a Bible survey course that asks them to apply Scripture to daily life. One Sunday a month the youth travel to a senior living facility to worship and interact with residents.
The Adult Forum meets in the lounge on the upper level and is open to anyone who wants to join the conversation on topics of faith and life. The building is handicapped accessible, and the church is described as a vibrant Lehigh Valley congregation rooted in the Evangelical Lutheran tradition.
Worship on Wednesdays in Summer
In the middle of the week, during the warmest months of the year, St. Timothy takes worship outside. WoW (Worship on Wednesdays) began in 2013, just before the church formed its own praise team, and runs ten Wednesday evenings from mid-June through mid-August. Services are held at the pavilion on the Land of Promise across the street from the church, with area praise teams rotating in to lead music. If the weather turns, worship moves inside to the air-conditioned sanctuary.
Each WoW service also features a different local nonprofit that has a track record of doing good in the community. A representative briefly shares the mission and how volunteers and donations can help, and the evening's offering goes directly to that organization. Past features have included a wide cross-section of Lehigh Valley nonprofits working in youth mentoring, addiction recovery, refugee welcome, food access, and housing.
Quilts Stitched Since 1990
The Quilters Group is one of the congregation's longest-running ministries. It began in 1990 stitching quilts for Lutheran World Relief and has met continuously since then. Around 2000, the group began making quilts for local partners, including the Red Cross and Family Promise, and today the quilts and blankets are produced entirely from donated materials. The group welcomes anyone interested in learning, including men, and no prior skill or experience is needed. Quilters gather on the first and third Tuesdays of the month at 10:00 a.m. in the church lounge.
Family Promise Hosting Twice a Year
St. Timothy has served as a host and support church for Family Promise since 2020. Twice a year, for one week at a time, four families arrive at the church at 6:00 p.m., share dinner, spend the evening with fellowship and movies in their own separate sleeping rooms, and head back to the Day Center the next morning at 6:00 a.m. There they can shower, do laundry, send parents to work, and get children to school.
A hosting week takes about forty volunteers to staff. Setup crews, dinner and overnight hosts, food teams, and laundry and folding teams are all part of the rotation, and new volunteers are welcomed at any time.
Neighborhood House and Allentown Collaborative Ministries
Sunday mornings are also when St. Timothy shows up for its unhoused neighbors through Neighborhood House, a program of Allentown Collaborative Ministries (ACM). Neighborhood House, located at Christ Church on Turner Street, provides breakfast and lunch along with a safe place to get out of the cold or heat. Volunteer "hosts" supply, prepare, and share a hot breakfast and a bag lunch each week, and the goal is to serve the unhoused while building community across Allentown congregations, community groups, and individuals. Shellie Fritchman serves as the Neighborhood House Coordinator, managing supplies and food and working alongside hosts and neighbors.
Allentown Collaborative Ministries was created in 2011 as a multi-denominational organization that serves the unhoused community through worship, outreach, and mission. St. Timothy is one of ten member congregations alongside Christ Lutheran, Redeemer Lutheran, St. Luke's Lutheran, St. John's Lutheran, Chapel Community at Muhlenberg College, Jerusalem Western Salisbury Church, Episcopal Church of the Mediator, First Presbyterian, and The Barn.
Daybreak, the Food Bank, and CROP Walk
St. Timothy's outreach extends into the daily life of the Lehigh Valley through several long-standing partnerships. Once a month the Daybreak team from St. Timothy prepares a hearty dinner for one hundred people, which is served at 4:00 p.m. by Daybreak staff at the Lehigh Conference of Churches facility at 5th and Tilghman Streets. Daybreak offers three meals a day, lockers, showers, clothing, computer access, and trained case workers to anyone in need of support.
The Allentown Area Ecumenical Food Bank, Allentown's only daily food bank, serves about seven thousand people a month. St. Timothy volunteers engage with clients on the fifth Wednesday of any month that has one, walking alongside them as they navigate the Client Choice Pantry.
For more than forty-five years, St. Timothy has been the kick-off spot for the Allentown CROP Walk, which raises funds for Church World Service and its work supporting communities in difficult circumstances, with a portion of proceeds staying local to feed the poor.
Ingathering, 3D, and the Prayer Chain
Each Christmas, members gather gifts for residents at Good Shepherd in Bethlehem and purchase baby items for new moms in need in Allentown. Funds raised through the Lehigh Mission District Ingathering are distributed to a variety of agencies in the Lehigh Valley.
3D (Discovery, Devotion, Discipleship) is the congregation's women's small group ministry, meeting eight times a year. Participants share prayer, Scripture reflection, and relational Bible study, drawing much of their material from WELCA Gather magazine. Fourteen women currently take part, and women of all ages are welcome.
TOLIP (Take Others to the Lord In Prayer) has been St. Timothy's intercessory prayer ministry since 1989. Thirteen participants currently serve, all requests are kept confidential, and anyone can submit a prayer request through the church office.
The Peach and Very Berry Festival
Late each August, the church hosts its long-running Peach and Very Berry Festival, a neighborhood gathering held at the Welcome Worship Center pavilion on the Land of Promise. Free bowls of vanilla ice cream with fresh-cut peaches or berry sauce, crafts for kids, lawn games like cornhole, a plant sale, and live music fill the evening. The festival is a benefit event, and net proceeds go to the nonprofits featured during that summer's WoW services.
A Little Free Library on the Lawn
On its own grounds, the church hosts a Little Free Library, a take-a-book, return-a-book gathering place for neighbors. There is no library card and no cost. Anyone can stop by, borrow a book, and bring another to share. The library is open whenever the building is.
Where St. Timothy Fits in the Wider Church
St. Timothy is part of the Lehigh Mission District, a regional sub-unit of the Northeastern Pennsylvania Synod made up of twenty-four congregations in Lehigh County. Pr. Nelson Quinones of St. John, Fogelsville serves as the Dean of the LMD. About half of every dollar St. Timothy contributes to the synod for mission support is forwarded to the ELCA, supporting churchwide staffing, missionaries, campus pastors, and chaplaincy in military, medical, and prison settings.
The Rev. Maritza Torres Dolich serves as pastor, and contact with the church office runs through office@sttimothylc.org or 610-435-6512. St. Timothy describes its core values as a joyful response to the Spirit of Christ, active love within the church family, deep partnerships that bring hope and healing, compassionate service to communities near and far, and the faithful and generous use of gifts and resources.