ALLENTOWN, Pa. — Through the doors of the Emmanuel United Church of Christ in Allentown, hymns echoed through the century-old sanctuary one last time.<\/p>\n
The church on West Chew Street held its last service Sunday, in front of 151 people, before closing due to declining attendance.<\/p>\n
It is a congregation Lenore Kohl has been a part of her whole life.<\/p>\n
“I was baptized here, I was confirmed here, I was married here, so it’s been a big part of my life,” said Kohl.<\/p>\n
Kohl’s uncle was one of the ministers. She said it is a place where she has made a lot friends. Kohl said she was a part of a youth group that would do everything together.<\/p>\n
“We were at church two or three days a week and just had so much fun together,” said Kohl.<\/p>\n
Fellow lifetime member Barbara Reph was also sitting in the pews.<\/p>\n
“I sit in here and think of all the years I’ve been here. My family has been here, my grandparents, so it’s been an awful time saying goodbye,” said Reph.<\/p>\n
She used to take part in activities, like baking fundraisers and basket socials. Reph said she sat in the same spot each Sunday.<\/p>\n
“I love my church and as you see, it’s a beautiful place,” said Reph.<\/p>\n
Reverend Rebekah Moyer calls it a very special place, a congregation she said has become part of her family in her four-and-a-half years here.<\/p>\n
“Just amazing people, people with strong faith and people who have the heart to help people in the community,” said Moyer.<\/p>\n
She says the church will be serving the community after it closes, but there is no specific plan yet.<\/p>\n
“This is home. Emmanuel was my home, always,” said Reph.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ALLENTOWN, Pa. — Through the doors of the Emmanuel United Church of Christ in Allentown, hymns echoed through…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":152368,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[214,119,121,120,34436,805],"class_list":["post-152367","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-allentown","tag-_homepage_top_stories","tag-allentown","tag-allentown-headlines","tag-allentown-news","tag-feature-belt","tag-lehighvalley"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152367"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152367\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/152368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}