Some of the faithful readers of The Search for Piety and Obedience know that my wife and I attended Circle of Hope, a network of Brethren in Christ congregations and cell groups in the Philadelphia region, for a few years while we lived in the City of Brotherly Love.
It’s no wonder, then, that this article from Philly.com recently caught my eye. The piece describes Circle of Hope as an “informal and personal” set of congregations rooted in “one of [Pennsylvania’s] oldest denominations, the Colonial-era Brethren in Christ.” It also claims that the congregations, which tend to attract a younger crowd, is sometimes dismissed as a “hipster church.”
Here’s a taste of the article:
There is something very new and very old happening inside the Circle of Hope.
Born of the mid-1990’s Philadelphia Christian punk scene, the church with four locations in the area is rooted in one of the state’s oldest denominations, the Colonial-era Brethren in Christ.
Some observers glibly dismiss the current iteration as a “hipster church.” And, sure, there are plenty of beards and blue jeans and a certain laid-back stagecraft.
But the theology here is meaty. There may be talk of using Google maps to view Biblical sites, but there are also citations of the Law of Moses to help contextualize the scripture.
Read the whole piece here.