Pictured on the front of this month’s issue is the oldest German Reformed Church building still in existence, located at Old Goshenhoppen, near Woxall, PA. It was built in 1732, just seven years after the events recorded below. Those events, including the first communion service held by a church of our denomination, were commemorated October 15, 2025, on the Three Hundredth Anniversary of that first regularly organized Reformed Church worship service. We are indebted to Reformed Church historian Rev. William J. Hinke for pursuing to completion the collection and publication of the letters of our church’s founder, John Philip Boëhm. He writes: “When John Philip Boehm arrived in Pennsylvania in 1720, and settled in the Perkiomen Valley, his Reformed neighbors persuaded him, ‘shortly after his arrival,’ to hold religious services for them, in which he acted as their reader. Thus he ‘maintained the ministry of the Word, to the best of his ability, and to the great satisfaction of the people, for five years, without any compensation.’
Read the full article at:https://rcus.org/article/the-old-goshenhoppen-church/
