The Journey Community Church, primarily located at 25 Belmont Street in Worcester, is just over 10 years old. The Church, which considers itself to go beyond its walls and become part of the City of Worcester, has continued to hold services — albeit not fully in person — and support the community in terms of food insecurity, literacy programs, and more throughout the pandemic.

“The vision was to be an intergenerational, multicultural urban church,” Pastor Lou Soiles said. “The idea was to not just be a church but also an urban church in terms of site but also embedded in neighborhoods in the city.”

Journey Community Church currently has two locations, its second being at 46 Greenwood Street. 

“Our hope is to have sites at various neighborhoods in the city where we become neighbors with people in the neighborhood and partner with those living in those neighborhoods and seek the flourishing common good and well being,” Soiles said. “We see that as a biblical call. We think that’s what Jesus calls us to do.”

“We see the gospel, which is the core message of Christianity, of having both the spiritual aspect and social aspect,” Sparling said. 

Sparling said that a lot of churches have lost the social aspect to their Chrisitainity practices. He has wanted from the start of the church, however, to discover different avenues for the church to support and work with those that live around the building.

“For us, it’s about, starting in our neighborhoods where we are and then across our city, where we can bring about that flourishing,” Sparling said. “It’s led us into some pretty interesting adventures. It’s also led us to have a range of relationships with people, some who believe like us and some who work to the common good.”

Sparling said that the work that the Journey Community Church tries to work with the recovery, homeless, refugee, foster care, and school communities. 

COVID-19, however, changed the work that the congregation was able to do. Almost 18 months ago, Journey Community Church was asked to work with the Worcester Together group, finding ways to support those in need during the pandemic.

“Worcester Together has helped us become more aware of the broad diversity of needs in real time,” Soiles said. “For example, we were sent an email about a family in a shelter that needs help with school clothes. It’s that kind of stuff that…we try to be responsive to as they come up.”

The Church has worked with the Department of Children and Families (DCF) as a location for family visits serving as a needed safe, neutral place for children in foster care to see their birth parents.

“DCF offices were closed. There used to be food courts and that type of place,” Soiles said, mentioning how the pandemic has changed routines for the Department. “But our church was open, so they’ve been using a number of our spaces since last December.”

The group has partnered with Welcoming Alliance for Refugee Ministry (WARM) to offer a learning pod at the congregation for refugees, starting as soon as virtual learning became a norm. The gathering has since transformed into an English learning tutoring experience. 

“It came out of the whole challenge of schools (during the pandemic), especially for refugees,” Sparling said.

The Church helped to fund items, like laptops, to Belmont Street Community School. They also raised $20,000 for items like chromebooks and to support the school. Additional money supported refugee students through WARM specifically. 

At the second campus, in Quinsigamond Village, the Journey Community Church is part of a collection of churches that is a group called Hope for Worcester, which hosts events around the City of Worcester. Journey Church’s particular event became a wellness fair, largely in response to the pandemic.

“It was just this great collection of resources: mental health, physical health, we offered vaccines,” Sparling said. “It was a whole group of health and wellness related organizations. Several hundred of our neighbors came and took advantage of it…It was a great day.”

The Journey Community Church also has what they call a generosity fund.

“There have been some very generous gifts that have allowed us to respond to needs,” Sparling said. “We’ve been able to respond very quickly.”

Within the community around the Belmont Street location, Sparling said that they have been able to foster a relationship with schools to work on a literacy program with children.

“We were really caught with whether or not a child will succeed in life based on being at reading level by third grade,” Sparling said. “As many as almost 30 people, pre-COVID, were up there reading to the lower grades and supporting them in those areas.”

The reading is one-on-one mostly with children who do not have anyone at home to read to them. Students at Belmont Street Community School often have a variety of needs, Soiles said, including the fact that English is not always their primary language.

“We would rather make a significant difference by investing our time and energy in a few key areas than spreading ourselves as a token,” Sparling said. “Seasons like this really birth innovation…We’re really grateful for how our church has responded.”

Soiles said that COVID-19 has allowed for the congregation to rethink about the resources they have to offer the Worcester community: volunteers, meeting spaces, and some funds.

“We were able to connect in a lot of ways,” Soiles said. “Even if it was virtually and we couldn’t meet face-to-face, we learned how to do that.”