Bruce Posten
Reading Eagle
On the second Saturday of every month, they wear jeans and T-shirts to worship not in a church but at the GoggleWorks.
They then proceed to volunteer at social service agencies or go out on Reading's streets and serve food and drinks and talk about Jesus.
They are mostly quite young: 20s, 30s and 40s.
This is the heart of their Saturday, their day of worship at the city's 4-year-old Grace Outlet Seventh-day Adventist Church.
The soul of their mission: "Connect the Disconnect."
"We know that there are so many people in Berks who desire to help Reading, and we want them to know that we have that desire, too," said Amy Newman, 30, of Shillington, a nurse and mother of two children, whose husband, Roland, 34, is a family physician with St. Joseph Medical Center at its Sixth and Walnut streets campus, the former Community General Hospital.
The Newmans are among a growing young congregation of Seventh-day Adventists who have made a commitment to worship in the city and serve those in need in a way they believe allows them to live their Christian faith.
"We live in a time when there is a deconstruction of religion, almost to the point that some people have difficulty even saying the name of Jesus," said Roland Newman. "But the truth of Jesus is boiled down to the practicality of Jesus, who taught: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."
"We are theologically conservative, but we are not traditional," said Jason Foster, 34, one of two church pastors, the other being Kris Eckenroth, 35, both of Hamburg.
Eckenroth said since the church started in November 2008 with about 20 to 30 weekly worshipers, the attendance numbers have grown to more than 100.
"Our age range is pretty widespread, from infant to 80, but mostly we are attracting a lot of young adults," Eckenroth said.
In fact, Eckenroth estimated that about 65 percent of the membership, before they came to Grace Outlet, no longer had been attending a church or were among the unchurched.
To what does he attribute the attraction of this relatively new congregation, renting space at the GoggleWorks?
"Jesus never becomes more real than when you are serving people and you do something intentional and make the effort to become part of a community," he said.
"The way I would describe it is that all of us, and that includes many denominations and not just ours, are susceptible to being in a rut," Foster said. "We are not moving away from the roots of what we believe, but, unfortunately, we sometimes get used to doing something a certain way and then attach a value to it, which really doesn't have anything to do with our core beliefs. An element of stagnation then sets in."
To avoid that stagnation, Grace Outlet steers clear of fixed formats for worship and mixes musical selections that range from traditional to contemporary.
"We don't necessarily want people to know what's coming next," Eckenroth said. "We will even change the direction of our seating for service. It's not that we're so committed to change for the sake of change, it's just that we want people to remain open and be interactive."
In that vein, church members embrace social action and variety: They conduct a Jeans Sabbath where congregation members dress down and hit the streets and provide food or deliver flowers; serve breakfasts at the Opportunity House shelter; and visit such places as the Olivet Boys and Girls Club, the Children's Home of Reading, the Animal Rescue League and the Villa St. Elizabeth, a city senior housing facility.
"What attracted us to the church is its energy, vibrancy and the willingness expressed to serve," said substitute teacher Lauren Penkala, 25, of Exeter Township, married to her state trooper husband, Stephen.
"We are both public servants and believe it's important to be active in your community," she said.
Heather Wlasniewski, 28, of Schuylkill Haven, Schuylkill County, a full-time mother, and her husband, Andy, also 28, an insurance adjuster, said they had a history of jumping around to several Seventh-day Adventist churches.
"We first came here one time in September 2009, and then my dad passed away in October," Wlasniewski said. "Upon learning of his death, Grace Outlet sent us a huge bouquet of roses. I just knew here is where we needed to be."
Another elementary school teacher, Meggan Shobe, 27, of Mount Penn, pointed out two features that drew her to Grace Outlet: "My husband and I came here and immediately felt a strong sense of family and belonging.
"We also wanted to come to a place where we felt needed and we could make a difference."
"For me personally, I'm not as interested in religion (as an institution), as I am in Jesus and having a meaningful relationship with him," said Erich Mace, 30, of Wyomissing, a chemical engineer, who attends Grace Outlet with his wife, Erin, 26, a second-grade teacher.
"Good acts are fine, but it is knowing Jesus and having a relationship with him that gives the greater meaning on the way to discovering that a practical Jesus is real in people's lives," he said.
"I grew up in a more traditional Catholic family and then moved to a nondenominational church, but I always had a lot of questions about God that just weren't being answered," Erin said. "Religion was more about rules and fears than it was about having a relationship."
Contact Bruce R. Posten: 610-371-5059 or bposten@readingeagle.com.
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