After a devastating blaze, Overbrook Presbyterian Church has found a community of generosity to help it recover

The Overbrook Presbyterian Church (OPC) is noted for its extensive ministry on behalf of the poor, the sick, the marginalized, and the bereaved. Now the historic church on City Avenue has found itself in need of generosity in the wake of a devastating fire the night of Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

Although no one was injured, the Jan. 15 blaze destroyed the 135-year-old sanctuary, leaving the building filled with soot and smoke, the preschool and numerous community organizations without a meeting place, and 350 members without their place of worship.

“I think we are going to be OK but I am not naïve — it will be a long road.”

“I know church is just a building but it is like a home has been lost,” said church member Keedra Carroll who for 16 years has marked a number of her own personal life milestones at the church: her marriage, the confirmation of her children, and the death of her father among them.

“There are a lot of deep memories for me.”

According to the church’s pastor, the Rev. Adam Hearlson, the fire marshal has yet to determine a cause.

At the church’s first post-fire Sunday service, which was held at neighboring Penn Wynne Presbyterian Church, Hearlson told the congregation of his immediate feelings as he stood alone in OPC’s charred sanctuary at midnight, watching firefighters finish their work.

“At that moment, I felt that strange combination of grief and anger that comes in the wake of destruction. That feeling that you don’t know if it’s rage or if it’s pain,” said Hearlson adding, “It wasn’t just a building, it was our building.”

For Carroll, Hearlson’s sermon resonated.

“It was a powerful and real [sermon]. He acknowledged that we get mad, upset and angry with God. He actually verbalized what we don’t always acknowledge,” she said.

One of the earliest sources of support has come from a diverse group of faith-based organizations helping OPC to carry on.

In addition to Penn Wynne’s offer to accommodate the church’s weekly service, St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Ardmore is the temporary home for itschoir rehearsal while the retiree ministry will reconvene at neighboring African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas on the 6300 block of Lancaster Avenue.

And on Wednesdays, members who usually joined together for prayer and Bible study in OPC’s sanctuary will now gather at Temple Beth Hillel-Beth El in Wynnewood.

“So the fire is out, and we are gathered, so what is next is twofold, Hearlson said. “To oversee what is a very onerous and bureaucratic process of remediation and insurance which is a huge administrative task. More importantly than that is trying to set up systems for the generosity (we are receiving) to be directed wisely.

“Then eventually we will figure out how to rebuild,” Hearlson added.

Hearlson said the church has just started working with an insurance adjuster and Carroll said it may eventually consider a GoFundMe campaign but because the Presbyterian church practices a deliberate and inclusive decision-making process, a decision on the next steps won’t come quickly.

Missionary outreach has been an important part of the church since its founding in 1889 on land donated by a wealthy Quaker, Wistar Morris.

“We are trying to be really present in the world. We do a lot of work with poverty and the incarcerated,” Hearlson said.

On the morning of the fire, the church was hosting its eighth annual Memorial to the Lost, a display of T-shirts with names of those killed in Philadelphia by gun violence in 2023. The Memorial to the Lost is an educational exhibit that was created in 2013 by Heeding God’s Call, a faith-based advocacy organization.

“The day of the fire is the day we put the T-shirts out. I was there that day and a woman literally stopped, parked, got out of her car, and came over to us. She said what struck her is that we were doing something outside the building,” Carroll said.

“There won’t be that visibility for us for a little while.”

While Carroll, who sits on OPC’s leadership board, said the group expected to be back in its Fellowship Hall for worship, meetings and events within two months, the historic sanctuary and its renowned stained-glass windows will take at least two years to be rebuilt.

“I think we are going to be OK but I am not naïve — it will be a long road,” she said.

Overbrook Presbyterian Church is listed as an American Presbyterian and Reformed Historical Site, and on the U.S. Department of the Interior’s National Register of Historical Places. The church’s distinctive stained-glass windows were installed over the first five decades of the church’s existence.

“In seminary we never had a class on this.”

“I don’t know what it will look like, but the beauty we were used to, we will find a way to restore it,” said Hearlson, who admitted that nothing in his studies ever prepared him for dealing with a church fire.

According to a 2015 Pew Research Center report, between 1996 and 2015 there were 4,705 reported fire incidents at houses of worship.

“In seminary we never had a class on this,” Hearlson said. “But we have a faith that teaches us that death and destruction is not the end.”

As if to underscore this point, a firefighter brought out to Hearlson the Bible from the altar that had survived the fire mostly unscathed.

The church reached a membership high of 1,500 in the 1950s, but like many churches across the country has experienced a precipitous decline in membership over the years.

But Hearlson, who has been OPC’s minister for five years, said the support he has received from so many places of worship gives him hope that the nation’s churches will survive.

“I love that we are partnering with our neighboring churches. I don’t want to be the church alone and siloed. The problems of our world need a coordinated response from people who share values,” he said.

“The network of love and grace is growing from a fire we didn’t want.”