{Cindy with her husband, Tim, and two of their children when they first moved to the area for the CFC church plant}
In so many ways, it’s hard to wrap my head around the fact that Tim and I have been here at Covenant Fellowship Church for forty years. How fast the years have flown, and how did we get to be so old! When we came to the Philadelphia area to help plant the church, we had already moved four times in our four-year marriage, and we never dreamed we would live in the same house for the next forty years.
Thinking back over four decades, we have seen a lot of changes in the life of Covenant Fellowship Church. I think of the Gauntlett Center with all of its issues: asbestos flooring, no air conditioning and little heat in the winter, no place to have midweek meetings, and setting up and tearing down each week. Oh yes, also the delightful bug population that lived in the building. And yet, God poured out his spirit in spite of the surroundings.
Then God gave our church land and a building, and we began a new chapter here in Glen Mills. His Spirit has remained, and we’re just as excited for all that God is doing now as we were then. Here are three things we’ve observed as we look back over our lives here at Covenant Fellowship these past forty years.
First, the Lord and his gospel have remained central and supreme. We had to grow and adapt as the church changed size and location over the years, but the solid biblical preaching, teaching, and fellowship have remained constant. Each senior pastor from Bill, to Alan (as an interim pastor), to Dave, and now to Jared, as well as all of the other pastors, have led and taught us so well, steeping us in God’s Word and truth. None of our pastors is perfect, but each is quick to share his shortcomings and where God’s grace is abundantly at work. They love us and care for our souls.
Second, the local church is of great importance in the life of a believer. What would possess a small group of adults and their children to leave their homes, their dearest and closest friends, and a solid biblical local church to come to a city where they had none of those? The answer is that God had given us a vision to share the gospel with the lost and bring a model of the New Testament local church into this area. We wanted to share what we had experienced in our lives at Covenant Life Church. We wanted other believers to taste and see the goodness of God, like we had, in sharing life with other saints, knowing and being known, and having dear friends who walk with you in all the seasons and highs and lows of life. We didn’t always get it right, and we look back and laugh at some of the things we thought and did, but we knew that God could change lives, just as he changed, and continues to change, ours.
Last, there is no perfect church. This side of heaven, each of us carries with us the sin that so easily entangles, and we bring those sins with us into the church. However, God is at work in and through his imperfect people in imperfect churches. Bill Patton describes well the temptation to leave a church in his article, “The Benefits of Spending Decades in One Church”:
Restless for something new, we leave one church to attend another down the road. Or, drawn by a range of programs better suited to meet our needs, we leave a good church and dear friends, to go where the perceived benefits are greater. Or, experiencing relational difficulties, we uproot ourselves from a faithful church to start over again in a place where we are relatively unknown, where little is expected of us, and where church life is, frankly, easier. (Sovereign Grace Journal, March 2023)
Though the lure of greener pastures can be great when the waters are rough and the way is hard and clouded, the Lord has reinforced a word in our hearts: This is our local church. We know that the Lord has placed us here, and here we stay.
We know that God leads people differently, but Tim and I plan to remain here at Covenant Fellowship Church until the Lord calls us to him. We want to continue to serve and to build into the legacy that began forty years ago. It’s so wonderful to see the next generation catch a vision for the New Testament local church and want to give their lives for it. We love watching our grandchildren and other young families learn to love and serve the Savior and his people here. Ringing in our hearts are the words to one of the songs we’ve sung through the years: “Haven’t you been good? Haven’t you been so good to me!”
