Changing Skyline: Hit by Lightning, Church Reinvented Itself

PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER
By Inga Saffron, Inquirer Architecture Critic

The Rev. Donna L. Maree offers communion during a mass to recognize the 20th anniversary of lighting strike

PENNSYLVANIA---Trinity Memorial Church at 22d and Spruce Streets was failing in the summer of 1994, and the few dozen remaining congregants knew it. Then, in the midst of their collective soul-searching, the historic church and its congregation were saved, oddly enough, by a bolt of lightning. Instead of seeing the fire as a sign to call it quits, the congregation vowed to reinvent its 1874 building as something more than just another church where people go to sit on hard benches once a week. On Sunday, Trinity celebrated the 20th anniversary of its transformation into a bustling community hub that operates in concert with a nonprofit called the Trinity Center for Urban Life. [link]