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A Brief History of Valley Forge Baptist Church
The Revolutionary War Days (1770's)
The Beginning of a Church (1830-1834)
A Church Grows, but Falls on Difficult Times (1834-1866)
A New Church Emerges (1881-1946)
The Beginnings of a Gospel Minded Church (1946-1988)
Introduction
This document is a work in progress. We are still trying to put together some of the content and are missing a couple pieces. If anyone has a hard copy of the original - we would love to see it and compare it to what we have here. Thanks goes to Ken Sassa for providing this material as originally written by him for a class while in seminary.
The history of the church presently known as the Valley Forge Baptist Church (VFBC) spans well over 200 years, a significant amount of time for churches in America. Starting with the origins of the church structure around the time of the Revolutionary War, this report will survey the history of the VFBC from that time until the present. In order to present the history of this church, six distinct periods will be identified and discussed. The six periods which make up the history of the VFBC are titled as follows: The Revolutionary War Days (1770s), The Beginnings of a Church (1830-1834), A Church Grows, but Falls into Difficult Times (1834-1866), A New Church Emerges (1881-1946), The Beginnings of a Gospel-Minded Church (1946-1988), A Church Strives to be Biblical (1989-present).
The Revolutionary War Days (1770s)
The roots of the VFBC extend back into the Revolutionary War days when a small building was constructed on what is the present site of the VFBC by a wealthy landowner named Samuel Workizer. After he built it, he then donated this building for both public and religious use.
The general public made use of this building to conduct various meetings while religious denominations were allowed to use the building to hold worship services. It should be noted that the one religious group not allowed to use this building were the Catholics since this religious group was not well liked in this area.
The exact date of the construction is not known, but it definitely was there by September of 1777 because that is when it was destroyed by the British. The reason for its destruction is due to an iron forge which had been built in the 1740s about a half mile from the building constructed by Samuel Workizer. The forge was located along a small stream which emptied out into the Schuykill River. In fact, Valley Forge derives its name from this iron forge. The forge was used to process the metal utilized in the making of various weapons to supply the American troops. When the British learned of its existence, they retaliated by destroying this forge. As part of the punishment, the British also destroyed a number of other buildings nearby, of which the structure constructed by Samuel Workizer was one. This building was set on fire and the only things left intact after the fire was over were the stone foundation and the stone walls, both of which form part of the present structure.
And so ends the glowing beginnings of the VFBC in the days of the Revolution. An interesting bit of tradition comes to us from this period in the history of the VFBC. There is a famous picture of George Washington which shows him kneeling and praying by an oak tree. According to tradition, this oak tree was located on the present site of the VFBC so that our church site might have been visited by him. If you are a member of the VFBC and that doesn't make your bones chill with excitement, I don't know what will. One must remember that this is tradition and not necessarily history, but it is these little interesting side notes of history that make history exciting!
The Beginning of a Church (1830-1834)
Once the structure in Valley Forge built by Samuel Workizer was destroyed by the British in 1777, the structure remained vacant until the time of the 1830s when a church would be founded on this site. The formation of this church is connected with the Pheonixville Baptist Church (PBC) which was organized in May of 1830 at a location only a few miles from the Valley Forge structure which had been destroyed by the British. The PBC was formed by a number of ministers connected with the Philadelphia Baptist Association (PBA). The PBC was not officially a member of the PBA, but it had an association since its ministers were connected with the PBA. In the fall of 1832, the PBC experienced a revival or religion which caused it to significantly increase in membership.
In the Spring of 1833, I. G. Collom of the PBA became pastor of the PBC. The continuing associating of the PBC with the PBA was a source of irritation for some members and a matter repeatedly discussed in the church. The new church body was formed in 1834 when they established a church called "The Schuykill Baptist Church" (SBC) in the old burned out structure originally built by Samuel Workizer. This remained the name of the church until the 1950s when it was renamed "The Valley Forge Baptist Church."
Thus, it is seen that the roots of the VFBC go back to the PBC whose members left it to begin the SBC. The following statements from church documents written in 1834 give some insight into the formation of the SBC: "Resolved, that in our judgement, it is expedient, that those Regular Baptists, in good standing, in this section of Chester County, who are in favor of the measure, should be formed into a church to bear the name 'The Schuykill Baptist Church'...Resolved, that a prayer meeting be held every Thursday evening at such places as shall from time to time be appointed, to entreat the body to prayer and godly living.
After the decision to form the church, a building committee was assembled on July 1, 1834 in order to see to the details of constructing the church. The building committee consisted of the following people: John Workizer, Peter Suplee, John Rogers, Isaiah Thropp, Dr. Jacob Pennypacker, Hiram Clover, and I. G. Collom. Under the guidance of this committee, people from the Valley Forge area began building the church. The church was completed and dedicated in November of that same year.
A Church Grows, but Falls on Difficult Times (1834-1866)
Following the establishment of the SBC in 1834, the church began to grow. For the next 32 years, services were held on a fairly continuous basis. The ministers that served the church for this period are recorded on page 13 and were supplied by the PBA.
During the ministry of Rev. D. A. Nichols, 103 people were baptized. For the greater part of this period, the church membership averaged about 100-125 members. Although the type of gospel nor the spirituality of people during this period are not known to us, what is known is that during the period of 1855-1860 the church began to encounter difficulty. For whatever reasons, various members of the church were not living up to the commitment they had made to the church. The situation became so serious that the church used discipline on its members to deal with this difficulty. Those members who demonstrated unfaithfulness to the church covenant were disciplined by being excluded from church fellowship. Members could be excluded from fellowship for a number of reasons. Some were excluded because they failed to attend services for a certain period of time. Others were excluded because they did not support the ministry of the church financially. Still others were excluded because they bought, sold or used alcohol.
In 1866 the building was finally condemned and the SBC was closed. The difficulties encountered by the church at this time are no doubt in part due to the Civil War that struck the country this time. Wars have a way of devastating the religious life of the nation in which it occurs. In the wake of the Civil War, the religious life of America was in turmoil and churches, like the SBC, were plunged into difficult times. When the SBC decided to close, arrangements were made to hold services at a nearby Methodist Church, but this only lasted for a year.
Except for one newspaper advertisement in 1876 the following fourteen years are completely silent as to the history of the SBC. There is a newspaper advertisement which concerns a music show given by people apparently associated with the church. We do not know about the spiritual life of the people at this time, but this musical show doesn't appear to sing of a spiritual commitment to the Savior. Although recitations entitled "Rock of Ages" and "I Will Pray" are mentioned as being part of the musical, the overall tone of the advertisement just does not reflect clearly a gospel focus on the part of the people. But only the Lord truly knows about these situations.
A New Church Emerges (1881-1946)
The fourteen year silence in the history of the church was broken in 1881 when the pastor of the Great Valley Baptist Church, the Rev. James Guthrie, organized a Baptist Sunday School in Valley Forge and began teaching. In April of 1900, the Rev. E. E. Hoffman, formally of the Free Will Baptist Church of Conshohocken, started preaching in Valley Forge. As a result of all this activity, there was a call from the people of Valley Forge to reorganize a church at the abandoned SBC building. On Thursday, March 21, 1900, a meeting was held in Valley Forge to discuss that very topic and the result of that meeting was the decision to build a new church on the old SBC site. Members of the community at this meeting were Mr. and Mrs. William Reese, as well as minsters from the PBA like the Rev. MacMackin and the Rev. Warwick. The pastor of this new church was the Rev. E. E. Hoffman mentioned previously.
This new church apparently had connections with the PBA since the manual of the PBA was adopted as the new church manual. During the fourteen years of silence, the church had fallen into ruin again for some unknown cause. In order to construct the building, various families from the area would come down in the evenings and on the weekends to begin doing the necessary repairing work. The building committee this time consisted of the Rev. E. E. Hoffman, William Reese, R. Y. Coffman, and Joseph Orner. While the cost of construction was not to exceed $2500, the actual costs totaled only $1800. The building was completed and dedicated on November 17, 1900.
It would be interesting to get a glimpse into the spiritual life of the church, but this is hidden from our sight. For this period, we do know that there was a concern which arose over what would happen to the church if it fell apart again as it had in the past. The Baptist denomination to which the church was associated apparently claimed that it had the right to claim the church grounds for its own if no church services were held there for more than a year. Some people, however, did not want the church to fall back into the hands of the Baptist denomination. So various ladies of the church got together and decided to donate $100 a piece to be put into a fund. If the church fell apart again, this fund would be used to conduct a service at least once a year so that the Baptist denomination would not be able to claim the church grounds for its own. Other than that, all we have for the remaining period of time is a list of the ministers which served the church.
The Beginnings of a Gospel Minded Church (1946-1988)
[Missing a part of the document here] le VFBC came with the ministry of James Penlington. Under his ministry, the VFBC would enter the beginning stages of being a gospel-minded church. He arrived on the scene in the early 1940s as a youth worker in the church who was attending seminary. Raised in an Episcopal background, James Penlington did not come to experience the saving power of the gospel until he attended the Bible conference center in Montrose, PA where he heard the gospel and believed on the Lord. Before he was saved, he had become an excellent baseball pitcher and had the chance to attend college on a baseball scholarship. He might have even had the chance to enter the pros as baseball scouts had their eyes on him. But he forsook his promising career in baseball to follow the call of God on his life and entered King's college to study for the ministry.
After graduating there, he went onto seminary and then became a youth worker at the VFBC while attending seminary. In 1946, the current pastor of the church left under some unknown circumstances and the church was in need of a pastor. Having graduated from seminary at this point, James Penlington decided to apply for the position. A number of other ministers also applied for the job, but the people of the church knew and liked him so they chose him to be the pastor.
The people of the VFBC only had enough funds to afford a part-time pastor so that James Pennlington also had to work full-time at the Valley Forge Army Hospital as a boiler engineer while he was pastoring the VFBC.
When he assumed leadership of the church, he made some changes in the way the church was operating that were met with less than an enthusiastic response on the part of the people. For example, the church had a strawberry festival in which they would sell strawberries and other things every year to raise money for the church. Rev. Penlington put an end to that practice trying to carefully explain why that should not be done and how they would look to the Lord to supply their financial need. Many people did not like that decision.
During this time, the church also had a number of unbelievers in it. One man , for instance, was noted to remark for years that Christ was just a person whom scholars attributed all these great things which were untrue just to keep people in line. As the church had these unbelievers in its midst, Rev. Penlington focused on preaching the message of salvation by grace.
As time went on, he saw the need for putting an addition onto the existing building so that there would be more room for worship, Sunday School and other church related activities. When he brought this proposal before the people, he encountered opposition. The attitude of the people was that you needed to wait until you had all the money in hand before you did anything like that. Rev. Penlington, on the other hand, had the attitude that when God called you to do something you needed to step out in faith and do it trusting that God would meet your need as you did His will. The people reluctantly agreed to this.
When they began building in 1959, they decided they would get a mortgage. In order to get a mortgage though, they had to be an official member of an official denomination. So Rev. Penlington and a few other men of the church decided to go to the American Baptist Convention (ABC) to see if they would recognize the VFBC as an official ABC church. The ABC flatly turned down their request because they said they did not belong to the ABC and, furthermore, they were rather perturbed at the VFBC because they caused attendance to go down at other ABC churches in the area. The ABC was less than happy over the fact that people were going to the VFBC when they could have gone to other ABC churches if the VFBC wasn't there.
Having been refused support by the ABC, the people of the church were unable to get a mortgage and so they were forced to pay money out of their own pockets as the bills came in. The building was completed in 1960 as Rev. Penlington said it would be and this was a positive testimony to some of the unbelievers there as they saw God supply their need. Specifically, the man mentioned earlier who was skeptical concerning the person of Christ received the Lord later in his life and cited the demonstration of Rev. Penlington's faith in the Lord in such matters like trusting the Lord to give the money necessary for the adding onto the church as very influential in his salvation.
The addition to the church tripled the church in size. While the building was going on, the elders approached Rev. Penlington concerning the affiliation that the VFBC had with the ABC. Although the VFBC did not take direction from the ABC in the doctrine it taught, it was a member of the ABC on paper. These elders had come to a point where they felt that the church needed to break immediately from its association with the ABC. Rev. Penlington suggested that they take some time and bring in speakers to hear why they should withdraw before they actually made the decision to withdraw. He desired to do things decently and in order.
While the elders were not happy with the association of the VFBC with the ABC, they also were not happy with the addition that was being put onto the building. They had agreed only to adding a Sunday School addition, but the people within the church doing the building decided to add a sanctuary. As a result of their displeasure over the building addition and Rev. Penlington's desire to wait before pulling out of the ABC, the elders walked out on him.
In 1969, Rev. Penlington became a full time pastor of the church. In order to do this though, he had to become an official ABC minister which he did. Although he was an ABC pastor at this point, he did not take any direction from the ABC in terms of what he taught and was free to continue preaching the gospel which he did. In his ministry, he focused mainly on salvation and less on helping believers develop a personal walk with the Lord. The preaching of salvation did bring the church to a more awakened spiritual state than it had been in the past. But the lack of helping believers once saved to grow in their relationships with the Lord limited the potential of the church.
He also made a policy of not marrying divorced people, but he would marry believers and unbelievers. By the time he retired in 1988, the church had a large number of what would be called biblically illiterate people. Some people even had trouble finding various books of the Bible. But there were a core of committed believers. Yet these people were still spiritually young and in need of growth. But under the ministry of Rev. James Penlington, these people became spiritually sensitive enough to realize that when he retired they needed to find a good pastor so that they could move in the direction God wanted them to. They were gospel-minded enough to begin searching for a pastor who would lead them in the way of the Lord. So it is seen that under the ministry of the Rev. James Penlington, the church entered the beginnings of being a gospel-minded church.
A Church strives to be Biblical (1989- present)
[Missing a part of the document here] Under his ministry, the church would move from the beginnings of being a gospel-minded church to one striving to be biblical in every area of its life. Having graduated from the Philadelphia College of the Bible (PCB) in 1981 and worked as a prison chaplain since that time for Wings of Eagles Ministries in New Jersey, William Farrow, in 1988, began to have a longing to preach and lead in a local church. He sensed God calling him to lead in a local church. With the help of the PCB, he began his search for churches who were searching for pastors. The PCB gave him a list
[Missing a part of the document here] lng whether they would select him as pastor. He preached at the morning service after which their was a question and answer period so that people could talk to him. After they finished, he left and the congregation held a meeting where they unanimously voted with a few abstentions to call him as their full time pastor. There were no votes against him.
William Farrow officially started as pastor of the VFBC on May 1, 1989. Arriving with his wife, Mrs. Patricia Farrow, the new pastor began to learn about the unhealthy spiritual state of the church. The church was in a poor situation spiritually, financially, and in terms of attendance. As was stated earlier, a great part of the congregation did not know about what the Scripture had to say. In a majority of the people, but not all, there was no spiritual zeal for the Lord or the lost.
He decided to send out a questionnaire to the people asking them what they thought the needs of the church were. In that questionnaire, he included questions about people's personal spiritual lives. He didn't get much of a response from that questionnaire and a number of people told him that their spiritual lives were none of his business. Not all were like that, but some were. The church was in a precarious financial situation as it was running low on money. If something wasn't done to change it, the church probably would have had to shut its doors in another two years because it wouldn't have any money to operate. In addition to that the church only had about 30 people in attendance on a Sunday service.
Realizing the spiritual condition of the church, William Farrow set about establishing a solid teaching ministry in the church. He instructed the people in the church in the fundamentals of the faith, reopened the Sunday evening service which had been closed for a number of years and started having a Monday Night Bible study. In addition to this, changes were made in the type of worship service that they had. Prior to his arrival, the church was very liturgical in the way it conducted its worship service. For example, the recital of the Lord's prayer and the Apostle's Creed was a standard part of the worship service. The new pastor decided to remove these recitals from the worship service. This and other changes were not greeted with great enthusiasm by some members of the congregation. But everything was done with the intent and aim of encouraging the believers at the VFBC in the things of the Lord and getting them excited about what the Word had to say.
The fruits of the teaching ministry of William Farrow began to show themselves in 1991 when the church's association with the ABC became an issue once again in the church. In 1959, the ABC had said that the VFBC was not an ABC church, but as time went on and the ABC began to lose more churches, the ABC had a change of attitude toward the VFBC and considered them part of their fold. In 1969 when Rev. Penlington became an official ABC minister, the church grew deeper in its ties with the ABC. But yet the affiliation it had with the ABC was only an outward association. Technically we were a member, but practically we were not. Rev. Penlington had never taken any direction from the ABC in how he led his church and neither did William Farrow. But yet the church was on the rolls of the ABC and in 1991, certain people within the congregation began expressing their concerns to the pastor about the church's affiliation with the ABC.
A special note to be included at this point is that William Farrow had been told by several fundamental pastors not to go to the VFBC because it was a liberal ABC church and nothing good would come of it. However, they were wrong. In March of 1991, a motion was made by Bill Smith, a member of the VFBC, to study and see whether the VFBC should be a part of the ABC. In the months that ensued, a study of the doctrinal and theological positions of the ABC were made by Stephen Diem and the apostate condition of the ABC was clearly revealed. A report was prepared and issued to the congregation.
Many people in the congregation had just not known about the state of the ABC and were appalled when they realized that their church had been associated with such a body. In September of 1991, special speakers were brought in to present the pro-ABC side and the anti-ABC side. The presentations made by these special speakers to the congregation were followed by a congregational meeting where it was unanimously decided, with only three abstentions, that the church would officially withdraw itself from the ABC. This decision was a significant point in the history of the VFBC as it clearly defined the VFBC as a church striving to be biblical.
Following the decision to leave the ABC, the church began examining another issue within the church: membership. For quite some time now, the pastor and the board of deacons had known that the church membership lists were loaded with people who never came to church, but were recognized as full members. A decision was made that for the next year the church would send out two separate letters telling those who had not attended in quite a while to call or write if they wanted to retain their membership because a purging of the membership lists was going to be undertaken in 1992.
The church leadership recognized that certain members had valid reasons for not attending church (i. e. health, military service, etc.). The church was mainly interested in purging its membership list of those who didn't come because they didn't feel like it. In the letter, our desire for those non-attending members to become attending members was made clear. Some elders even went personally to tell non-attending members about what was going to happen. In that next year, no one responded. If they wanted to remain a member, all that they had to do was call or write. But no one said a word, that is, until action was taken to remove their name from the membership list.
The church was thrown into great turmoil over this issue, but it eventually died down and the important work of preaching the gospel and living for Christ went on. Since William Farrow has been ministering at the VFBC, the church has improved spiritually, financially and in terms of attendance. Spiritually speaking, there had been real, spiritual growth in the lives of both young and old at the church. Certain youth who have shown disinterest in the things of the Lord in the past are now demonstrating a great interest in the Lord and His Word. Some of the older people who were young in spiritual years when William Farrow first arrived have now grown significantly and have been used by Him especially at the City Gate Rescue Mission in Coatesville, PA where the church goes to minister every other month. The church is doing well financially as the giving of the people has gone up significantly. As for attendance, the church has doubled its attendance since William Farrow first arrived.
There are good things God has been doing in the midst of the church, but their continues to be difficulty also. There are still a significant number of people who come to Sunday School but don't attend the worship service. There are also those who go to the worship service, but they don't go to Sunday School. Then there are parents who send their children to Sunday School, but who don't go to church themselves. Yet the church does have a committed core of Christian who are serious in their commitment to the Lord and whom He is using to accomplish His will.
Pastors known to have served the Valley Forge Baptist Church
1. Rev. I. G. Collom (1834-40)
2. Rev. Curry (1840)
3. Rev. D. A. Nichols (1841-43)
4. Rev. Job Gaskill (1844-45)
5. Rev. Joseph Curren (1848-49)
6. Rev. John Reese (1850-59)
7. Rev. George Spratt, Sr. (1861)
8. Rev. Samuel Godshall (1865-67)
9.
Rev. Elmer Hoffman (1900-06)
10. Rev. Walter Gorman (1907-10)
11. Rev. E.
R. Clemens (1910)
12. Rev. J. Elmer Saul (1911-15, 18-19)
13. Rev. J. W.
Riddle (1916)
14. Rev. Harold Ely (1920-21)
15. Rev. G. C. Van Artsdalen
(1922-23)
16. Rev. Ralph C. Rowland (1923-34)
17. Rev. Walter Ried
(1935-36)
18. Rev Adam Warner (1936-46)
19. Rev. James G. Penlington
(1946-1988)
20. Rev. William Peck (1988-89)
21. Pastor William Farrow
(1989-present)
The Revolutionary War Days (1770's)
The Beginning of a Church (1830-1834)
A Church Grows, but Falls on Difficult Times (1834-1866)
A New Church Emerges (1881-1946)
The Beginnings of a Gospel Minded Church (1946-1988)
The Revolutionary War Days (1770's)
The Beginning of a Church (1830-1834)
A Church Grows, but Falls on Difficult Times (1834-1866)
A New Church Emerges (1881-1946)
The Beginnings of a Gospel Minded Church (1946-1988)