Lower Heidelberg church offers services in Chinese and Spanish

by Steve Reinbrecht

For many reasons, people from all over Berks County come to a church in Lower Heidelberg to join thriving services for people who speak Chinese or Spanish.

In all, about 1,000 people typically attend services at Calvary Bible Fellowship Church, 4891 Penn Ave., every Sunday.

About 40 people attend the Chinese service at Calvary. They formed a church group years ago and had been meeting in borrowed spaces. For a while, a few mixed American-Chinese couples attended services in English at Calvary and then drove to a Chinese service in a church in Spring Township, Calvary Pastor Wayne Rissmiller said.

In 2012, Calvary offered the group a permanent site in its church, just west of Krick Lane. More than 600 people in Berks speak Chinese at home, according to the Census.

Local high school students who are learning Chinese have come to the Chinese service to practice the language, Rissmiller said.

The church reaches out to Chinese students at Albright College and Penn State Berks, and Chinese students from those campuses often enjoy meeting members of the Chinese church, especially if their English is limited.

Meanwhile, the church has hosted a Spanish service since 2013, and it now attracts 45 people or so. Rissmiller said many Spanish-speaking people from different countries have been moving to Southwestern Berks. The Census says more than 50,000 people in Berks speak Spanish at home.

“They are becoming much more of the fabric of community out here,” he said. Many parents go to Spanish service while their children go to Sunday School in English, he said.

Most of the people who attend the Chinese services are local, he said. About half the Spanish families come from Reading and the rest from Southwestern Berks, he said. The church’s general population draws from as far as Schuylkill and Lancaster counties.

The Spanish- and Chinese-speaking members gather with general members and have parties and shared meals.

Rissmiller doesn’t believe there are other Chinese services in Berks.

Calvary opened in 1963 in the current Community Evangelical Church, where the poll booth is, on Green Valley Road just up from Sheetz. It moved to its 47-acre campus in 1999.

Calvary has services at 11:11 a.m. to make the time easy to remember.