Church parking near the stadium is a win-win for faith and sport

CHESTER, Pa. — The Eagles and the NFL may still be the sports favorites at Calvary Baptist Church in suburban Philadelphia. But many here also root for the team next door, which reached the Major League Soccer championship game last year.

Their new fan base is all about location and parking revenue. The Philadelphia Union plays at Subaru Park, a stadium on the banks of the Delaware River just a few blocks from Calvary in the economically challenged city of Chester. Poverty rates are among the highest of any metropolitan area.

As Union continues to attract a loyal following and reach new heights, the historic church that Martin Luther King Jr. attended as a seminarian was also blessed.

That was very important. Like many other Black Protestant churches, Calvary Baptist has suffered financially during the coronavirus pandemic. Attendance has declined, and with it so has funding. However, the church converted its parking lot to accommodate game day fundraisers, staffed the lot with volunteers from the congregation, and sold spaces for $15 per vehicle.

These days, the church raises up to $3,000 per game, about half of what goes on Sunday’s fundraising plate, said Pastor Keith Dickens. The welcome influx of additional funding is being used to pay for utilities, ministries and a new speaker system that will allow Calvary to reach a wider audience by broadcasting its services online.

“It was a blessing,” Dickens said. Dickens proudly wore a Philadelphia Union hat on his most recent game day. “Not only to generate funds, but also to meet and serve new people.”

Across the country, from Boston’s Fenway Park to the Green Bay Packers’ Lambeau Field, chapels near stadiums are opening up their parking lots to crowds of fans.

The church vault, which provides parking near professional soccer stadiums, recently received help from the world’s best active player, Lionel Messi, who joined the MLS squad this year. When Messi’s Inter Miami played Union, all 250 parking spaces in Calvary’s parking lot were full.

Jeffrey Scholes, co-author of “Religion and Sports in American Culture,” said churches like Calvary need to “continue to serve, to feed the poor, to keep the lights on.” He said there was a growing desire to use “secular entities like sports for religious purposes.” , ideally what the church would do. ”

Scholes has said in the past that clergy may have shunned parking businesses for sports fans as being too “secular”, preferring “old-fashioned ways” of encouraging church members to donate. Ta.

“There’s a lot more tolerance for different kinds of secular tactics to help churches, synagogues, and mosques fulfill their necessary functions,” Scholes said.

It also provides an opportunity to share with fans the history of congregations like Calvary, which was founded in 1879 by a group of formerly enslaved Africans seeking the freedom to worship.

On a recent game day, fans decked out in Union navy, signal blue and gold colors pulled into the parking lot in front of Calvary’s colorful mural honoring Dr. King. The civil rights leader worshiped at this church from 1948 to 1951 while attending Crozer Seminary in Chester.

Chester has a remarkable cultural and industrial history but is currently facing economic difficulties, making Calvary’s new parking revenue even more valuable.

“For us, if we can contribute to a good cause, it’s even better,” Abe Gitterman, a 37-year-old Jew, said before paying his parking fee. Next to him, his 6- and 7-year-old sons pointed to the mural and asked parking lot attendant and church member Lisa Lewis if this was the same man he had learned about in school. “Yes,” she answered with a smile.

“It feels good to tell them the history of the church,” she said later.

It can be fun too. Lesley Cranford, a parishioner at St. John’s United Methodist Church in Lubbock, Texas, said Texas Tech football fans can park up to four spaces in the church’s parking lot near the Red Raiders’ Jones. ($10 per vehicle) and tailgated them in the RV. AT&T Stadium.

Sometimes rival fans will park at the church. “We tell them, ‘We have to charge you extra,’” Cranford said with a laugh.

She introduced a parking program in her congregation 20 years ago. In a good season, she earns up to $2,000 per game. “Decreased attendance is a problem, so this is helping us maintain our services,” Cranford said.

In Boston, the Christian Science Church opened its parking lot to the public in 2014. That includes Red Sox fans, who can park for $30, a cheaper rate than near Fenway Park.

Kevin Ness, manager of the Christian Science Committee on Publications, said the proceeds will help cover operating costs for the Christian Science Plaza, a popular tourist attraction located above a garage in the Fenway District. He said he is doing so.

“This will allow members’ donations to directly support the Church’s global healing mission,” he said.

Bethany Church in Green Bay, Wisconsin, started the Packers parking program in 2010.

“We thought this would be a great means of outreach and a way to obtain funding to support our growing ministry,” Bethany City Administrative Assistant Jill Conerim said in an email. Ta. Connelly said the church doesn’t have a set fee and instead asks for donations, adding: “A lot of people are very generous.”

Connelly said the Packers parking lot helps fund programs such as youth services, small group learning and building facility upgrades. The church parking lot is often full on game days.

“We are known for our hospitality,” she said. “We had volunteers who would drive us from the parking lot to Lambeau, free of charge, for people who didn’t want to walk the half-mile to the stadium. So now we’re known for our shuttle service and friendly volunteers.”

The church also accepts other fans. Nashville’s First Church of the Nazarene provided parking for three shows attended by thousands at nearby Nissan Stadium during the Nashville stop of Taylor Swift’s Ellas Tour. The parking program ($30 per spot) is popular during Tennessee Titans games and helps fund ministries in Nashville and missionary efforts in Haiti and Kenya.

“All of this money goes back into helping people,” said senior pastor Kevin Ulmet. “When people hear that, they like it and say, ‘We want to be a part of that, too.’ And that, to me, is the classic definition of win-win.”