“The University,” philosopher Richard Rorty once commented, “has replaced the church as the center of morality.” Rorty made the comment during a lecture at the University of Virginia – it still lingers in my mind many years later. His observation was that people don’t look to the church for answers to their ethical questions; they interview experts at a university. The university communities of our world produce and fuel the stories we live by. I worked in and around university communities for many years in campus ministry, as a graduate student in Sociology and in churches serving these communities. While serving as a pastor in New York City, I realized that many of our strongest leaders at Redeemer were those that came to us out of an array of campus ministries. Rorty’s statement that day was a simple statement of sociological and cultural fact, but oddly it has inspired the church we have planted.

When Stacy and I initially considered church planting, two places came to mind – university communities and cities, primarily because of our great respect for both and our deep commitment to those who inhabit these worlds. Philadelphia is a city of universities and a part of our personal history. While in seminary I worked with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship at The University of Pennsylvania. We had a number of friends in the Philadelphia area who listened for years to our musings over active engagement of the university community. With their encouragement, the blessing of the Philadelphia presbytery and a love for the city cultivated at Redeemer in Manhattan, we moved our family of five to the University City neighborhood of Philadelphia to start City Church in the summer of 2006.

After a summer of prayer, gatherings and ice cream, we held our first worship service in the fall of 2006. Since then our community has grown from the small band of praying people meeting across ideas into a vibrant community of people engaged in worship, friendship and mission across the city. We love what City Church is becoming.

We hope you will consider joining us for worship, community and service to our great city and its amazing people.

-- Tuck Bartholomew