“When I was in my late teens, I thought Christianity was a bunch of malarkey,” explains Jeff Perdew. “I thought Christians were a bunch of hypocrites who believed in Jesus but didn’t follow his teachings, and I wanted no part of it.”

“I left the church, to my parents' chagrin. I will admit that I was very lost while I was in college. I was pretty wild and tried lots of different things. Thankfully, I met my wife Rene and she helped me to get sober. She was a Lutheran and I started attending church with her.”

“We moved to the area in 1986 and we found Christ the King. It was a place where my wife and children and I fit in. I really appreciated the messages from the pulpit. I experienced a different approach to Christianity than I had known before. It was focused on the love of Jesus and sharing that love with others. It was about serving others and not focusing on yourself.”

Jeff enjoys serving others at Christ the King using his many gifts. “I have served on council as the treasurer. I was the elder of stewardship. I am a cantor in worship. I sing in the choir. I keep coming back here because, where else would they let me play guitar all the time?" he adds with a smile.

Jeff was recently elected congregation council president. “It is a privilege to serve on council. This council is a joy to work with. They are positive, forward thinking, and they really care about serving our neighbors in Jesus’ name.”
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Jeff’s faith developed over time. “I discovered that when you help someone else, it makes you feel better. My approach to faith became less about me, and more about ‘us.’” 

“I am a ‘Martha.’ I am not someone who gets up in front of people and makes a big deal of my faith,” explains Ruby Nelson. “I prefer to help, to be in the background. I will let others do the work in front of people.” Ruby recalls, “My mother was a preacher’s kid. She had a very quiet and deep faith. It was more like a river than a storm. I guess I followed in her footsteps.”

Ruby is a long-time member of Christ the King. “When our family moved to West Chester in 1974 we were looking for a Lutheran church near our new house. We found this community worshipping in a school and felt an instant connection. People were welcoming and kind and they had kids the same ages as ours. We had no family nearby; Christ the King became our chosen family.”

“I was very busy with my vending business, and when my husband Gaylord and I sold it and retired in 1992, I was looking forward to giving more of myself to Christ the King.” Ruby was invited by Adele Gims to start a quilting circle at the church. “Adele’s mom had a saying - 'You have to help yourself to take care of others.' I was helping myself and taking care of others by making friends and making quilts. In the beginning, we only made thirty quilts a year. Now we make over 100 each year. We send 60 quilts to Lutheran World Relief, and the remaining quilts are given away locally. We are proud of what we do.”

​Ruby continues to sew quilts with the Mary Martha circle on Tuesdays. “We always think about who is going to get these quilts and how they will be blessed by them while we are sewing. It feels really good to share our faith in this way.”

"Growing up, my dad never made us go to church. It just wasn’t part of our life,” said Ryan Warrior.

“I came to Christ the King to work on the outside of the building.” Ryan wasn’t looking for Jesus. “But the people I met were kind and welcoming and they had a sense of peace. I was jealous of that. I wanted that peace. I was going through life thinking about everything here on earth. There is only so much here. I knew there had to be more.”

Ryan was reluctant to attend church. He was worried he would be judged. “But my wife Lisa kept telling me that I needed to come. She was persistent!” he exclaimed. “Eventually I started coming to worship, and then I attended Deep Dive Bible study. I wanted to learn. I discovered that to get the peace I wanted, I had to understand it first. You realize that faith isn’t a two-dimensional puzzle, it is a delicate three-dimensional puzzle you have to hold gently in your hands. When it falls apart, you start again.”

Ryan is grateful for the opportunity to ask questions and wrestle with his faith at Deep Dive. “It has helped me to realize that there is so much more to life; it’s like having a daily epiphany. I was so blind, but now I see how God is at work in the world. I had questions, but now they have turned into convictions.” After attending the Deep Dive study on the sacraments, Ryan asked to be baptized and became a member of Christ the King.
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“For years, the people I knew threw up their hands. They just gave up. But I know there is more. When you give yourself up, when you start learning, it starts making sense. I want my friends to know what I know. You just have to trust, be patient, and peace will come.”

Gardening has always been an important part of Ramona Burns’ life. The church has not. “I am an army brat. I moved a lot. Church was okay for a time, but after a while, I found it to be very judgmental.” As an adult, Ramona was invited to attend Christ the King, and found a place where she belonged. “Chris Kinnaman was the first person to welcome me. I felt accepted immediately. One of the great things about Christ the King is if you want to wear your rags to church, you can wear your rags. No one is judging you by your clothing.”

When Christ the King discerned the need for a community garden to help feed our neighbors, Ramona was asked to use her gifts and knowledge to help it get off the ground. “I learned vegetable gardening from my grandparents. Gardening is hard work, but it is good work. My grandparents made gardening fun.”
Ramona has helped create the kind of environment that she was looking for in a church. “The Community Harvest Garden is a place where people from different backgrounds come together and are welcomed into relationship. They share what is happening in their lives, give advice, help each other, tend to others’ gardens when they can’t be around, share pictures of their kids and grandkids, and find they have a lot in common.” 

“The garden is a place of healing. It is relaxing. It is comfortable. It can be very religious, working in the earth and working with others. New gardeners are really getting into it. They are helped and welcomed by returning gardeners who share what they have learned,” Ramona explains. “A garden that started out with a shared garden plot and four guest gardener beds has grown to a garden with 25 guest beds. Last year we harvested over 1,300 pounds of organic produce to share with the food pantry. That doesn’t include what our guest gardeners take home.”
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The Community Garden is a place of rest and peace for Ramona. “I come to the garden about 7 pm and sit and watch the shade as it grows and covers the garden. It is so calming. I’ll sit and look at the patches of bright green. It is a relief to relax. I feel that relief. I want other people to experience that same peace.”
 

Justin Walsh did not have much use for the church or organized religion while he was growing up, other than going to church on holidays with his grandparents. As a young adult, he was turned off by a church of “fire and brimstone,” and began putting faith in himself and his own ability to make things happen.

​Justin’s thinking about the church changed when he and his wife Jennifer were preparing to have a child. He wanted to better understand why people would put their faith in something bigger than themselves.

Justin began visiting Christ the King after his daughter Lilly was born. He remembered the sense of community he had experienced at Christ the King when he came as a child with his grandparents, Tom and Chris Kinnaman, and was seeking that kind of community again.

Justin was drawn to the Community Harvest Garden. “I met Ramona Burns who oversees the Garden. I really felt the community that was being built there, and I could see the impact they were having. I wanted that for Lilly in her life.” He volunteered in the Garden, helping to grow vegetables both for his family and the hungry in the community. This transformed his thinking about the church.

He is now amazed at the impact that Christ the King is having on the community and on his family. “When I come to CTK, I can see the love and care that go into everything we do here: the sermon, worship, the Community Harvest Garden, even the work that the church council does. It inspires me and keeps me involved.”
​Justin now uses his gifts as the Elder of Stewardship at Christ the King. “I want people to see faith as something that is lived in community - instead of thinking only of ‘what my faith can do for me,’ to begin thinking about what it can do for others.” He is looking forward to another planting season in the Community Harvest Garden.