Reflecting God’s love in our community

• We imitate Christ by serving our neighbors with compassion and respect. Through individual relationships and transforming unjust systems, we answer God’s call to be salt and light in West Chester and beyond.
   

• We are a church based in the Borough of West Chester and tied to the people and organizations of Chester County. We seek to understand our unique potential to be Christ’s presence in this location. We have a long history of mission work including volunteering in our community, financial support to local nonprofit partners, team trips for disaster relief, a two-decade partnership with a church in Guatemala, and support of international mission workers. For the past few years we have embraced Matthew 25’s call to follow Christ through serving others. We have lived that out that call through focused efforts around caring for people who are experiencing homelessness, not only supporting them through addressing their immediate needs, but seeking to learn about and support efforts to address the systems that create barriers to all people having a home. We are currently undergoing an intensive process to discern how we might faithfully use two adjacent church-owned properties and exploring options for how they might serve to address the lack of affordable housing in our community.
   

Building the Body of Christ

• We seek to follow Christ by nurturing meaningful relationships with one another. Through a shared faith that unites us in our diversity, we are one worshipping body made of smaller groups that sustain, comfort, and challenge us throughout all the stages of life.

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• We are a large congregation. Many have found our church community to be a welcoming one. But we know that some have not, and that forming connections in large groups can be challenging. We also know that many have found deep connections to others through fellowship and caring for each other. But we know that our existing service and fellowship programs do not meet every need for connection in at First Pres. We know that isolation is a growing issue for many in our current culture. We seek to be better at building relationships that offer people an opportunity to connect to their fellow human beings. We seek to do this for our members, but also to find ways to offer connection to others in our community who are seeking meaningful relationships.