Audrey F. Bronson, pastor emerita of the Sanctuary Church of the Open Door and retired Cheyney professor, has died at 94

Audrey F. Bronson, 94, of Philadelphia, founder and pastor emerita of the Sanctuary Church of the Open Door, renowned evangelist, and former professor of psychology at Cheyney University, died Tuesday, Jan. 9, of complications from dementia at Saunders House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Wynnewood.

Bishop Bronson started to preach as an inspired 14-year-old, and she never stopped. She founded the Sanctuary Church of the Open Door in West Philadelphia in 1975 and became celebrated worldwide for her charismatic sermons and community activism.

“Before I finished high school I felt this calling to preach,” she told the Philadelphia Tribune in 2014. She told the Daily News in 1978: “I don’t believe in being so heavenly happy that you’re no earthly good.”

Appearing often with organist Becky Carlton, her “minister of music,” in church on Sundays, at national religious conventions across the country, and with groups of all kinds in Germany, South Africa, and Bermuda, Bishop Bronson delivered what a record producer called “very inspired and extremely sophisticated” sermons. She made people laugh, preached with her hands held high, chanted, and sang to cheering listeners while Carlton and choirs provided music and song.

She released several recordings of her evangelism, and a colleague said: “The listener is caught up from the very first word to the final pulsating climax of her sermons.” Two of her favorite maxims were: “I don’t know what the future holds, but I know who holds the future,” and “Use your power from the mountaintop to solve the problems in the valley.”

She became a bishop in the International Fellowship of Churches in 1994 and presided over dozens of congregations in the United States and around the world. She offered meeting space to local groups at her church at 60th Street and Larchwood Avenue, and later on Walnut Street near 59th. She also founded the Sanctuary Christian Academy for preschool and elementary school students, the Sanctuary Bible Institute, and the Sanctuary Counseling and Referral Center.

She ministered to cancer patients and prisoners in jail, organized food and clothing drives, and battled drugs and crime as a block captain. She was the first female president of the Black Clergy of Philadelphia and Vicinity, and served on the special investigation commission that examined the MOVE bombing in 1985.

Colleagues called her a “trailblazer” and “legend,” and praised her “wit, humor, style, realness, charisma and love of the word.” Her niece Flora Bronson Stitt said: “She was passionate and not afraid to fight. She had a way of making solid decisions.”

Bishop Bronson was featured often in The Inquirer, Daily News, Tribune, and other publications, and is listed in several who’s who books of notable Philadelphians. She won awards from the Fellowship of Women Clergy and other groups, and sat on the board of trustees at Cheyney, the Police Advisory Commission, and Dilworth Award Committee.

Her work was recognized by City Councilmember Katherine Gilmore Richardson, and the African American Museum in Philadelphia included her in an exhibit on influential women. U.S. Rep. Dwight Evans said her impact as pastor and educator “will never be forgotten.”

Audrey Flora Bronson was born Nov. 20, 1929, in Sanford, Fla. Her family moved to Philadelphia as she entered high school, and she graduated from William Penn High School in 1946.

She was valedictorian and earned a bachelor’s degree in elementary education at Cheyney State College, now Cheyney University. She received a master’s degree in psychology at Howard University and doctorate at New York Theological Seminary.

She taught psychology at Cheyney and preached all over on Sundays for more than a decade in the 1960s and early ‘70s before opening her Sanctuary Church and launching her community programs.

Bishop Bronson lived in the Greenhill Farms neighborhood in Overbook. She liked to wear her favorite checkered dress and go out for dinner after Sunday services to unwind.

She spent memorable holidays with her brother Oswald and his family. Everyone knew, her niece said, she was about to launch into a lecture when she got excited and repeated “wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute” to punctuate her point.

“She is the reason I believe in miracles and the reason I know God is real,” a friend said in an online tribute. Another friend said: “Dr. Audrey Bronson was a gift to all of us.”

» READ MORE: At 85, Bishop Bronson mentioned rapper Ja Rule in a sermon.

In addition to her niece, Bishop Bronson is survived by other relatives. Her brother died earlier.

She is to lie in repose from 1 to 5 p.m. Friday, Jan. 26, at the Sanctuary Church of the Open Door, 5923 Walnut St., No. 41, Philadelphia, Pa. 19139. A viewing is to be from 8:30 to 9:30 a.m. Saturday, Jan. 27, at Deliverance Evangelistic Church, 2001 W. Lehigh Ave., Philadelphia, Pa. 19132. A service is to follow at 10 a.m. Interment is to be at West Laurel Hill Cemetery, 215 Belmont Ave., Bala Cynwyd, Pa. 19004.

Donations in her name may be made to the Sanctuary Church of the Open Door, 5923 Walnut St., No. 41, Philadelphia, Pa. 19139.