On September 21, 1917, 61 people crammed into a living room in North Philadelphia & acknowledged that God was indeed at work and leading them to launch a new church. As a result, “Bethel Mission” was launched the following week at Front & Cambria Streets with 83 people and Bethel’s first pastor, George H. Whitehead, Sr. God blessed this group and the church started to grow.
With continued growth came the need for another property. So God caused “Bethel Mission” to purchase & renovate two row-homes at “B” & Allegheny Avenue as their new meeting place. So on December 22, 1929, “Bethel Temple” was launched...less than two months after the stock market crash! In spite of the failing economy all around them, in faith, this group of committed Christ-followers knew they clearly heard God’s voice in moving to this new location, so they stayed the course, believing that God would provide everything they needed. And He did...even though their first offering was less only slightly more than $25!
In spite of the economic hardship of the depression, God’s faithfulness was clearly evident to Bethel Temple, and they continued to grow as they reached more people for Christ. A new Sunday School building was built in July of 1938, and in 1941 Bethel Temple was completely debt free! Only God could have done this! With Bethel Temple on solid footing, the Lord called Pastor George H. Whitehead home on January 18, 1942. He was succeeded by his son, J. Wesley Whitehead.
In May of 1950, Bethel was able to purchase another building to expand further and to house its church offices. Throughout the 1950’s, Bethel Temple purchased 5 busses for transporting children & adults to Sunday School, and the Sunday School attendance quickly exceeded 1,000. In October of 1975, God allowed Bethel Temple to purchase another building to expand once again.
After serving faithfully for 42 years, Pastor J. Wesley Whitehead became “Pastor Emeritus” in 1984. In January of 1986 Dave Hine became the pastor. Soon after this, God once again asked Bethel to step out in faith and do something very unconventional. So they did. With a decreasing congregation that was all white in a neighborhood that was increasingly becoming Latino & African-American, Bethel came up with a plan to launch two new churches at once!
The existing site remained “Bethel Temple” under the leadership of Pastor Luis Centeno. Pastor Centeno began to reach out to the surrounding community and soon Bethel Temple was once again growing as it quickly became a church whose diverse leadership reflected the diverse community around it.
At the same time Bethel Temple was launched, a group of about 20 people
were sent out from Bethel Temple to launch “Bethel Fellowship” in a converted funeral home at 7114 Oxford Avenue in NE Philadelphia. Beginning with a capacity of 65, Bethel Fellowship began to grow, and in 1991, the adjacent property was purchased and used for Sunday School space and more off-street parking. Not wanting Bethel to get too comfortable, God once again asked Bethel to step out in faith, so at the end of 1993, money was raised and construction of a new auditorium began. This new auditorium was completed about a year later, and it raised seating capacity to 200.
In December of 1995, after leading the successful transition of both Bethel Temple and Bethel Fellowship, Pastor Dave Hine resigned to become part of the teaching staff of T-Net. But God’s faithfulness & and blessing to Bethel continued, and in April of 1996, Robert Tarnoviski became the pastor. And with continued growth, Al Rossi and Steve Eichner were quickly added to the pastoral team.
Soon, Bethel was doing 4 Sunday services...8:15am, 9:30 am, 10:45 am & 12 noon. Everyone realized that this was not a sustainable schedule, and so once again, God asked Bethel to step out in faith...and it did.
In October of 2004, Bethel moved into and started leasing its 
current location, the old movie theater at Franklin Mills Mall. Through the sale of its Oxford Avenue site, the sacrificial giving of its people, and some loans, Bethel was able to raise the almost $2 million that is cost to renovate the current site. Soon after moving in, Chris Hanley was added to the pastoral team.
Since our move to Franklin Mills, God has grown us about 50%. We have seen hundreds of people give their lives to Christ and lots more people take steps of spiritual growth in their lives. Each weekend now, we have about 1000 people in our services & classes. We’ve grown to be a truly diverse congregation, one that reflects the variety of race & age & income that is found on our surrounding community.
And now, God is once again asking us to step out in faith. It’s time for us to purchase our property. We are currently half-way through a ten-year lease, and we have the ability to purchase this property any time during the lease. In order to purchase this property, we first need to retire all of the existing debt we still have from the initial construction. Some of the money raised in this effort will also go towards some existing needs of our property as well as towards the closing-costs we will incur when we purchase this property.
In addition to raising the money mentioned above, God is asking us to raise money to renovate the theater next to the Youth Center. This space will become a multi-purpose gymnasium, giving us more room to reach more kids as well as giving us space that adults can use for activities and meetings. And, because God continues to grow Bethel’s heart for compassion, God is asking Bethel to set aside 10% of all money raised to go specifically to fund acts of compassion with the needy in our community, our city, our nation and the world. So 10 cents of every dollar raised will be used specifically to help meet the needs of the needy all around us.
Yes, in spite of the challenging economic times we find ourselves in, be reminded & encouraged by what a much smaller group of “Bethel people” did so long ago in raising money to pay for their new building in the midst of the Stock Market crash of 1929. God is still faithful. And God is asking us to step out in faith now to bless the generation to come.
OUR WEEKEND SERVICES
Saturdays at 6 p.m.
Sundays at 9, 10:15 & 11:45 a.m.