Syracuse RPC

Location: Syracuse, N.Y.

Organized: 1849

Members: 90 communicant; 25 baptized

Pastor: Andrew Schep

Website: www.syracuserpc.org

Leadership

Andrew Schep has served as pastor since 2003. Taylor Gordon is the full-time director of youth & community outreach ministries. Under Pastor Ed Robson’s leadership, the church grew significantly throughout the 1970s and ’80s and spawned new congregations in Rochester and Oswego. Under Pastor Ken Smith’s tenure in the 1990s, a portion of the congregation spun off to start what is now called Messiah’s Church in the northern suburb of Clay.

Church Life and Ministry

The church was built in a rural setting less than two miles south of the city center, but the city of Syracuse soon grew around it; and the church is now in an inner-city neighborhood blighted by poverty, gangs, and violence. Most members drive in from the suburbs or from the city’s more affluent and quieter neighborhoods.

The congregation has long wrestled with the challenge of being a relevant and meaningful part of its surroundings, seeking ways of overcoming racial, economic and educational barriers to show the love of Christ without condescension. The ministries by which we try to do this also serve to bring the members of our church together. Our food pantry distributes donated clothing and 120 meals’ worth of groceries twice a month to the needy, and provides an opportunity to visit and pray with our neighbors over soup and cookies. We reach children with the gospel at a weekly after-school Bible club and at vacation Bible school in the summer. “Jobs for Life” is a 16-week Bible-based course focused on character development and job-search skills that help those who struggle with unemployment and underemployment to find and keep meaningful work. The first class graduated in February. Two of our members lead an AA recovery group that meets in the fellowship hall. Our outreach efforts have not gone unnoticed. At the 2012 annual community tree lighting ceremony, we were honored with a community service award for helping to make Syracuse’s south side a better place in which to live.

Sunday school, monthly fellowship lunches, midweek Bible studies and fellowship groups for men, women, and young adults, and a thriving youth group, all provide opportunities for fellowship and spiritual nurture.

Pray for Us

• “We don’t need to write you about brotherly love, since you yourselves have been taught by God to love each other, and, in fact, you do love all the brethren….Yet we urge you to do so more and more” (1 Thess. 4:9-10). Syracuse is a loving church, full of broken people finding acceptance and healing in Christ.

• Pray that we would grow in our bonds of love in the face of many struggles and trials that include cancer, addictions, and strained marriages.

• Give thanks to God with us for our neighborhood, and for drawing ample volunteers to meet the needs of our ministry.

• Pray that God would continue to give us willing hearts that find joy in serving others.

Little Known Fact After a long period of disuse, the church bell was repaired about 9 years ago and is now rung before morning worship. Ev Wood helps children take turns pulling on the rope that hangs at the front of the sanctuary. Actually, the bigger kids pull the rope, while the smaller ones get pulled up by the rope! One of our church community’s dearest members, a mentally handicapped woman who lives a block away, began attending because she heard the church bell ring. Now she comes over whenever she sees cars in the parking lot. Though unable to read, she always brings her Bible in a Ziploc bag.