05-19-2024 Harford Magazine - Flipbook - Page 11
defied the odds. Membership in churches
nationwide has declined significantly in the
past two decades, according to a Gallup poll.
Between 2000 and 2003, 42% of U.S. adults
attended church consistently. By 2023, that
number had slipped to 30%.
In contrast, the non-denominational Christian Mountain Church has had to scramble to
keep up with demand.
Attendance grew by 40% last year, Cachiaras
said, and has regained pre-pandemic levels.
On an average week, about 7,000 people will
attend services at the church’s four campuses:
Joppatown, Edgewood, Abingdon and Aberdeen. The church plans to open a fifth campus
in Parkville in 2025.
Some weeks, online attendance pushes the
total number of worshippers to more than
10,000.
“I sometimes think churches get cluttered
with lots of traditions and manmade things
that people find unappealing,” Cachiaras said.
“We are not trying to do anything particularly new. We are trying to do something old
in a beautiful, fresh way. The message doesn’t
change. The methods do.”
Mountain Christian Church was founded in
1824, after itinerant preachers on horseback
from Kentucky encouraged about a dozen
families in the Joppatowne area to form their
Olivia Frost, 7, greets Barry Debelius with a fist
bump as he enters Mountain Christian Church for
a recent service.
own congregation.
Cachiaras thinks his church’s biggest accomplishments are best measured not by the number of campuses or the size of the congregation
but by achievements more difficult to quantify:
by the minds that have become open to the
teachings of Jesus, by the anguished hearts
that have been eased, by the bellies filled, hugs
given and hope extended to people in need of
grace.
He is proud that about 3,000 church members participate in small-group communities
that offer everything from Bible study to grief
counseling.
He is proud of the dozen international missions that his church undertakes each year.
For instance, Mountain Christian Church
established a partnership in 2006 that provides
food, education and health care to children
in Kenya who are living in poverty. Other
churches came on board, and over the past 18
years, the partnership has grown to 36 centers
serving 30,000 children.
Closer to home, in 2013 the church founded
a new community center, The Epicenter at
Edgewood. Among other things, the Epicenter
gave away a quarter million pounds of food last
year, Cachiaras said, provided job placement
and other services for 700 ex-criminal offenders and ran summer camps for kids.
That’s why John Hirsch, 36, of Perry Hall,
and his wife Corri Brown, 37, can’t imagine
belonging to another church. Brown said that
Mountain Christian “makes me feel comfortable and safe the second I walk through the
door.”
Even Brown’s daughter, 7-year-old Olivia
Frost, said she enjoys coming to church.
“It inspires my heart,” she said.
Mountain Christian Church
410-877-1824, mountainchristiancc.org
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