St. John’s Baptist Church shutters after 115 years

The future is uncertain for the East Passyunk Crossing-based space.

Sunday, August 25th marked a sad day in South Philly, as the 10:30 a.m. service at St. John’s Baptist Church, 1232 Tasker St., signaled the end of the location’s 115-year community presence. As its faithful plot the next step in their faith journey, no conveyed plans have emerged for what will become of the space. 

Full disclosure of the decision to close came via an August 19th Facebook post by then-Pastor Lisa Thomas. In a letter dated August 18, Thomas wrote that she was grateful for her four years at the East Passyunk Crossing church.

However, a combination of events had made it impossible to maintain an active prayer life at St. John’s. She said the building has been uninsured for the past eight months and continuing to meet there is “unsustainable, unsafe, and puts anyone who sets foot on the property in grave danger.”

The post came the same day the congregation had unanimously voted to dissolve and end operations, with Facebook users stating their sadness over the news. 

“We were down to five members who were actually present at this meeting and had only four or five worshipers consistently since May,” the former leader told the “Passyunk Post.” 

Thomas and her husband used to attend St. John’s in the early 1990s when their daughter attended its nursery school. Although Thomas is an Episcopal chaplain, as a former Baptist, she felt called to preach and minister at St. John’s Baptist Church after she graduated from the seminary in 2018. 

In 2020, that vocation fully took root, but, as she said in her Facebook post, “To everything there is a season,” in reference to Ecclesiastes 3:1. 

Regarding the history of the now-in-limbo location, Rev. Dr. James E. McJunkin Jr. noted that the Philadelphia Baptist Association (PBA) commenced the spot as a ministry to the Italian Baptist community. After the building was gifted to St. John’s Baptist Church, several decades of prosperity ensued. However, according to McJunkin, who has been the PBA’s executive regional pastor since 2002, matters took a significant turn for the worse “for many years.”

“[The overseers] sought to invigorate their ministry by developing partnerships with a Burmese and Indonesian congregation as well as a daycare organization that rented space in the building,” he said. “They had outreach ministries to the community as well. After a few years of this arrangement, it became clear that costs related to maintaining the building and the ministry were overwhelming.” 

Noting that members “celebrated the many decades of service to their community as a people of faith,” McJunkin stated the building reverted to the previous owner per an agreement, but he added that no plan exists for the address. A call inquiring about the zoning of the site has gone unreturned, too. 

Thomas told the “Passyunk Post” the closing has created “lots of feelings” within her. In her Facebook post, the former pastor said “I will continue to keep you all in constant prayer.”

While her former flock cannot unite within the confines of the church anymore, she said in an August 25th Facebook post Bible Zoom sessions are continuing and that, with enough interest, a caroling event might reunite everyone come the Christmas season. 

“Stay tuned to see how God is leading us into the next chapter of St. John’s history,” she also expressed in that post. “We will keep you updated.”