PLEASANT MOUNT, PA — Tiny historic Cold Spring Chapel regularly sponsors free meals to the community. On December 16, 2023, the chapel’s annual Christmas dinner offered ham, mashed potatoes, corn, applesauce and biscuits with a treasure trove of home baked sweet goodies in the cozy kitchen and dining area that is Perkins Hall.

Says pastor Mary Bryant, “When I arrived at Cold Spring Chapel nearly 19 years ago, I wanted nothing from the community, but I wanted to give them everything—beginning with God by preaching the Gospel, good friends, fellowship, feeding the hungry—every mission that has grown since the doors opened has been geared to building Christian community. 

“People find wonderful worship and wonderful friends here, and the Chapel Community Kitchen has just enriched the whole picture of who and what we are at Cold Spring Chapel,” she continued. “We are all truly blessed.” (Learn about services and programs on the Cold Spring Community Chapel & Chapel Community Kitchen page on Facebook.)

Like so many of the historic buildings in northeastern PA, Cold Spring Chapel is a reminder of an era when the vitality of villages and hamlets existed in a truly sustainable way. Early economies hummed with farming, land-based industries and the businesses—such as general stores—that served them. People only travelled a few miles daily from where they lived and worked. Christmases were truly homemade.  

People helped each other out and gathered in numbers at granges, town halls and places like Cold Spring Chapel to participate in civic engagement and worship.

In Northeast PA, so much of that is happening in modern ways, inspired by the past and the needs of the present.

This season. our history and the ghosts of Christmas past are powerful in places like Cold Spring, and they call out for even more of us to remember what has been and what can still be when neighbors gather to share common ground with open arms, minds and hearts.