Anniversary | New Building | Glimpses from the past | 10 Years
Celebrating over 10 years in Glassboro, New Jersey
1994 - 2008
“Glimpses from the past”
Article By Mrs. Jeanne Ridgway which was run in New Horizons Magazine a publication of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church
After eight years of paying rent, the purchase of a former “Jehovah’s Witnesses’ “kingdom hall” In Glassboro, New Jersey, has enabled Gloucester County’s first Orthodox Presbyterian Church to move into a Building of it’s own.
The thankful congregation of Providence OPC, Formerly Cross Keys Fellowship Presbyterian Church conducted its first worship service in the new building on February 27. The Church averages between fifty and sixty attendees on Sunday Morning, and is home to thirty-five communicant members and sixteen baptized Children (many of them infants and toddlers).
The Church is now located within walking distance of Rowan College of New Jersey, a school attended by nine thousand students. Pastor Alan Strange directs a student evangelism ministry at Rowan.
The newly purchased building was constructed in two stages during the 1960s and has been well maintained. It has seating for two hundred, with two classrooms upstairs and two rest rooms. It cost $95,000- about half the original asking price. Included in the purchase price were an excellent built in sound system, a piano in good condition, and 150 padded folding chairs. The congregation hopes to a kitchen eventually.
The former meeting place, in an old Grange hall, was situated at a busy intersection. The new church is located on a small street in a residential, multiracial neighborhood characterized by low- and moderate-income housing.
The Former Cross Keys Fellowship began in Washington Township, Gloucester County, when a group of believers began meeting for Bible study and prayer in October of 1985 at a doctor’s office. Home Missions support began and the organizing pastor was the Rev. Robert Rienstra.
Services were conducted for several years during the mid-1980s in a public school in Washington Township. The congregation moved several miles to the Cross Keys Grange Hall in 1989 and continued to hold services there until the purchase of the new building
Glassboro, a municipality of about 15,000 people, lies sixteen miles southeast of Philadelphia and within three or four miles of the church’s original meeting place. Since “Cross Keys” denotes a place, the church’s name was changed when it relocated. The new name honors God’s providential care in leading the congregation to their new home.
Note: This article was transcribe to fit the web format
The Hymn playing is number 51, "When all thy mercies, O my God" ©1961