Mountain Christian Church celebrates 200th anniversary serving God, community and the world

On a recent Thursday night at Mountain Christian Church, congregants chatted happily before the religious service while enjoying a $5 fried chicken meal.

Later, more than 200 people filed into the worship area, munching on free bags of popcorn. This particular service was part of the church’s six-week movie series, and pastor Ben Cachiaras expounded on lessons he found in the 2022 film, “A Man Named Otto” — lessons about finding meaning in your life in the face of tragedy, about finding solace by serving others, about the healing powers of community.

More than one listener teared up during Cachiaras’ presentation. It’s all part of how his church remains relevant in 2024 as it celebrates its 200th anniversary.

“In a way, we’re a church for people who don’t go to church,” Cacharias said. “We’re a church for people who maybe don’t like church. We try to teach basic Christianity: Love God, love people and serve the world.”

Perhaps that explains why Mountain Christian Church has defied the odds. Membership in churches nationwide has declined significantly in the past two decades, according to a Gallup poll. Between 2000 and 2003, 42% of U.S. adults attended church consistently. By 2023, that number had slipped to 30%.

In contrast, the non-denominational Christian Mountain Church has had to scramble to keep up with demand.

Attendance grew by 40% last year, Cachiaras said, and has regained pre-pandemic levels. On an average week, about 7,000 people will attend services at the church’s four campuses: Joppatown, Edgewood, Abingdon and Aberdeen. The church plans to open a fifth campus in Parkville in 2025.

Some weeks, online attendance pushes the total number of worshippers to more than 10,000.

“I sometimes think churches get cluttered with lots of traditions and manmade things that people find unappealing,” Cachiaras said.

“We are not trying to do anything particularly new. We are trying to do something old in a beautiful, fresh way. The message doesn’t change. The methods do.”

Mountain Christian Church was founded in 1824, after itinerant preachers on horseback from Kentucky encouraged about a dozen families in the Joppatowne area to form their own congregation.

Cachiaras thinks his church’s biggest accomplishments are best measured not by the number of campuses or the size of the congregation but by achievements more difficult to quantify: by the minds that have become open to the teachings of Jesus, by the anguished hearts that have been eased, by the bellies filled, hugs given and hope extended to people in need of grace.

He is proud that about 3,000 church members participate in small-group communities that offer everything from Bible study to grief counseling.

He is proud of the dozen international missions that his church undertakes each year.

For instance, Mountain Christian Church established a partnership in 2006 that provides food, education and health care to children in Kenya who are living in poverty. Other churches came on board, and over the past 18 years, the partnership has grown to 36 centers serving 30,000 children.

Closer to home, in 2013 the church founded a new community center, The Epicenter at Edgewood. Among other things, the Epicenter gave away a quarter million pounds of food last year, Cachiaras said, provided job placement and other services for 700 ex-criminal offenders and ran summer camps for kids.

That’s why John Hirsch, 36, of Perry Hall, and his wife Corri Brown, 37, can’t imagine belonging to another church. Brown said that Mountain Christian “makes me feel comfortable and safe the second I walk through the door.”

Even Brown’s daughter, 7-year-old Olivia Frost, said she enjoys coming to church.

“It inspires my heart,” she said.

Mountain Christian Church, 410-877-1824, mountainchristiancc.org