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The words of the prophet Jeremiah resounded throughout downtown Reading on Sunday, Sept. 14.
The Rev. Calvin Kurtz stood on the front steps of the Baer Chapel in the first block of South Sixth Street and proclaimed the prophet in a prayer inaugurating the first service of Charis Community Church at the former Second Reformed Church, which begat Second Reformed UCC, which begat Hopewell Mennonite Church, which begat the Baer Chapel, which begat the new home of Charis, which is a Greek word meaning grace.
“As I look at this place, if you look back over its history, many times the potter — God, the Potter — has reshaped the clay of this house of worship,” the 84-year-old first pastor at Hopewell Mennonite prayed, referencing Jeremiah 18.
Indeed, not only has the house of worship been reshaped, but also the Charis Community Church and in essence the city of Reading.
Second Reformed Church grew out of the need in the mid-19th century for an English-speaking congregation separate from the German-speaking First Reformed Church in the 600 block of Washington Street.
The present church building was constructed in 1892 with largesse from Reading Railroad President George Baer, who contributed the magnificent stained glass from Munich.
When Second Reformed’s congregation dissolved in the early 1980s, the building was bought by Hopewell Mennonite Church, and Kurtz pastored there for 15 years before becoming the director of the Reading Berks Conference of Churches, now Transformative Solutions Network.
After heavy snowfalls in 2017 buckled the walls of the church and Hopewell Mennonite could not afford repairs, Reading developer Alan Shuman stepped in, acquired the property and made the repairs necessary to save the building.
Hopewell Mennonite’s congregation then merged with Reading City Church, which worships in West Reading.
The Potter’s wheel turns.
“The heavy snowfall had pushed out the north and south walls of the building,” Shuman said in a phone interview, “so we had to have Dolan Construction come in, had to have a structure engineer come in and do some stabilizing cables and anchors to stabilize the structure of the building.”
The church building became a nondenominational wedding event space and was named the Baer Chapel in honor of Reading Railroad magnate George Frederick Baer.
The Potter’s wheel then turns again.
Charis Community Church was founded as a Spanish-speaking congregation on Schuylkill Avenue in 1976. In 1988, Efrain Ortiz began pastoring the church, according to his daughter Jocabed Robles. She and her husband, Abraham Robles, co-pastor the church.
The couple, both 40, are bivocational. Abraham holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Elizabethtown College and is employed by Penske. Jocabed has a master’s degree in special education from Albright College and is employed by the Downingtown School District.
They have three children ages 14 to 17.
Ortiz passed away in 2020 due to COVID but had always expressed to the Robles that they should continue the ministry, Jocabed said.
“We felt the call from God, the passion,” she said in the church office with sunlight filtering through stained-glass windows. “We had been working by his side for a very long time. I’ve walked with him, seen what he’s done since I was a little girl. I think the vision that was birthed in us was a spinoff of his efforts, but was a lot more, even more community-geared and just people-geared and meeting people where they’re at.”
Charis Community Church moved from its Schuylkill Avenue location and rented space in 1995 at the former St. Paul’s UCC in the 100 block of North Sixth Street. St. Paul’s had also been spun off from First Reformed Church in the late 19th century as the second English-speaking German Reformed congregation.
Kurtz had helped bring St. Paul’s and Charis together when he was director of the Reading Berks Council of Churches.
“Efrain Ortiz and I became friends, and I helped them move in at St. Paul’s,” Kurtz said as he sat with his wife, Esther May, in the foyer of the church before the service. “And now they’re moving from St. Paul’s to here. There are all sorts of coincidences.”
When the congregation of St. Paul’s UCC dissolved in 2004, Charis bought the church property.
But decades of deferred maintenance at St. Paul’s started to catch up with the Charis community, as the small congregation could not afford needed repairs to the church building.
The potter’s wheel again turns.
Shuman had acquired the former Community General Hospital at 145 N. Sixth St. and this year completed renovations, renaming the facility the Reading Community Health Center. The former St. Paul’s property adjoins the health center.
“The Robles had mentioned that they couldn’t afford to do anything to fix the problems they had there,” Shuman said.
He offered a solution.
“Mr. Shuman approached us,” Jocabed said, “and wanted to enter into a transaction where we would exchange buildings. We had to be realistic about the place that we were in at the moment and step with faith into what we felt God had for us.”
Shuman currently has no plans for the former St. Paul’s other than to stabilize the building as he did the Baer Chapel.
“The Baer Chapel is a magnificent building,” he said. “Its being significantly smaller than their prior church, I hope they will have the funds to continue maintaining it and preserve it for another couple of centuries.”
The Robles have plans for church growth, concentrating on creating a community center for the youth of south Reading.
And just as the German-speaking congregation at First Reformed found the need to transition to English services, the Robles are finding that second-and-third generation Latinos have a similar need. They are offering bilingual services.
“As the demographics have changed a little bit, as people have come into the United States, we’re finding that their children who are now our peers are preferring English because they grew up here,” Jocabed said. “So we have this generation that wants the warmth of the culture, but they’re not identifying with the Spanish language, and so we’re trying to bridge that.”
The Potter’s wheel continues to turn.