The beginning

Golderer is an ordained Presbyterian minister and religious entrepreneur who served as the founding director of the Center for Church Life at Auburn Theological Seminary; helped found Seven Percent, a national network of Presbyterian clergy under age 40; and was the founding director of religious outreach for The Interfaith Alliance in Washington, D.C.

He was at a professional crossroads when a pastor at a traditional Philadelphia church made him an offer: What if people from healthy churches got together and helped him start a church from scratch in the Wylie-Chambers building, which the presbytery was considering selling?

Fresh from teaching at Union Theological Seminary in New York, Golderer couldn’t imagine pastoring a conventional church, where he thought he’d find few risk-takers and theological adventurers. At the same time, he wasn’t eager to take on a more prophetic church that likely would be less viable.

But the idea of starting a church in the diverse Broad Street community interested him. So he connected with five established congregations in Philadelphia and the suburbs to lease the building and begin the work.

Golderer hit the streets, getting to know the neighborhoods and the people who, if things went well, eventually would become part of Broad Street Ministry. Many were musicians who worked all Saturday night; others would be out until sunrise partying. To accommodate them and send the signal that Broad Street was something different, he decided to hold worship at 6 p.m.

Broad Street started holding monthly, then weekly, services and hosting concerts, lectures and Bible study. Soon it was providing shelter and food for homeless people and getting involved in issues such as domestic violence as well. Golderer challenged people to get involved, shed their anonymity, debate what they heard in the pulpit.

Passersby heard something interesting going on inside and wandered in. Many stayed.

‘Don’t worry about a darn thing’

One beneficiary of Broad Street’s unconditional love is Eric Markle, a construction worker who was semi-conscious and high on crack cocaine when he stumbled into Broad Street Ministry a year and a half ago.

“They said, ‘Come on in, don’t worry about a darn thing,’” he recalled. “They gave me tea, food and let me sleep.”

As he has grown away from that lifestyle, he has given back what he could. He’s now part of the unofficial security detail and one of the most gregarious members of the community.

“Even when I was battling [addiction], I helped out here because it kept me human,” Markle said. “It keeps you from falling completely off the edge.”

On a recent Sunday night, he observed, another newcomer had made her way to Broad Street. Homeless and lost, the attractive young woman “doesn’t know anyone, including herself,” he said. But for that evening, she sat at a table eating a warm meal, surrounded by other friendly young people.

Broad Street’s outreach and operations are funded through grants, partner churches, large major donors, the city of Philadelphia, partnerships with other organizations and an annual appeal that generates hundreds of $5 donations.

Community tensions

Despite Broad Street’s roots in Calvinism, its clergy’s Presbyterian training and the support of local churches, the local presbytery hasn’t always known what to make of it.

Leaders at first were flummoxed by their inability to fit the mission into one of the denomination’s traditional categories, said Radak, of the Presbytery of Philadelphia.

That, along with tensions between the leadership of both the church and the presbyetery, led to a difficult relationship for the church’s first two and a half years.

But Golderer and Radak reached out to work together. Instead of fitting the church into an existing category, they invented a new one. In January, the church was recognized as a “missional faith community.” (See related interview with Radak.)

“They’re being sent out into the neighborhood to build relationships with the people God has sent them to,” Radak said.

The broader Philadelphia community hasn’t always been so welcoming, either.

Early on, Golderer received frequent hate mail from conservative Christians calling the church’s leaders infidels and criticizing the ministry’s positive media attention. “There were some real humdingers,” he said.

Broad Street also invited opposition from neighbors when Golderer volunteered to open the church as a homeless shelter during the winter, said Angelo Sgro, executive director of the Bethesda Project, one of the city’s major organizations serving the homeless.

Golderer followed through on his promise to start a shelter and also recruited neighboring businesses such as Ruth’s Chris Steak House and Starbucks to donate to the project, Sgro said.