Author: Daniel Gorman Jr.
This map shows the location of Glory to Glory Christian Fellowship from 2006 to present.
In November 2005, the Roman Catholic Community of the 19th Ward, a cost-sharing venture of four neighborhood churches, concluded a process of pastoral planning. Three churches — Our Lady of Good Counsel, St. Augustine, and Ss. Peter and Paul — would be closed and sold. Parishioners would report to St. Monica, which would also become home to Emmanuel Church of the Deaf.[i] Although the Catholic footprint in the 19th Ward shrank, the shuttered churches remained in use. St. Augustine became the COGIC New Progressive Cathedral. St. Mark’s Coptic Orthodox Church and St. Shenouda the Archimandrite Monastery in Henrietta purchased Ss. Peter and Paul as a Coptic mission. Glory to Glory Christian Fellowship, the subject of this report, purchased Good Counsel, located at 640 Brooks Avenue.
Our Lady of Good Counsel Closing Mass Program (May 7, 2006), c/o the St. Monica Archive.
Glory to Glory does not claim a denominational identity, but its views appear to fuse evangelical Christianity and Pentecostalism. Pentecostalism emerged from the holiness movement of the late nineteenth century. Protestant holiness adherents believed in a theology of sanctification, or a growing disinclination to sin, leading one toward spiritual perfection. Biblical literalism and a belief in miraculous practices akin to those of the Biblical apostles — speaking in tongues, healing through prayer, etc. — characterized the holiness Christians. Two cases of spiritual gifts galvanized the movement. Theologian Charles Parham reported in 1901 that the Holy Spirit empowered him to speak in tongues. In 1906, his student, African American preacher William J. Seymour, reported that the Holy Spirit had given him and his multiethnic parishioners extraordinary abilities at the Azusa Street mission in Los Angeles. Seymour’s revival is generally accepted as the point at which Pentecostalism solidified as a separate form of Protestantism. As the twentieth century progressed, Pentecostal denominations attracted a large number of African American Protestants.[ii]
Mark Mills, Glory to Glory’s founding pastor, has participated in a number of Protestant groups with a literal interpretation of the Bible. Mills suffered from heroin addiction as a young adult. He gained sobriety after joining the Rochester chapter of Teen Challenge, David Wilkerson’s evangelical rehabilitation service, in September 1992. According to a biography of Mills released by Rochester-area ministry His Branches, Mills was born again within two weeks of joining Teen Challenge.[iii] Over the next ten years, Mills worked as a drug counselor with Teen Challenge and was ordained at Rochester’s Calvary Chapel. Calvary is part of the national network of Calvary Chapels founded by Chuck and Kay Smith, pioneers of the “Jesus movement” who first preached to California beachgoers. Although Calvary Chapel supports common evangelical beliefs, notably complementary gender roles for men and women, Calvary’s “continuationist” belief in spiritual gifts provided by the Holy Spirit indicates a Pentecostal influence.[iv] Pastor Mills also became involved in His Branches, Dr. William Morehouse’s nondenominational ministry that provides spiritual formation and family health care services in the 19th Ward.[v] After his ordination, Pastor Mills began a pilot Bible study program in the 19th Ward. In August 2005, he reorganized this program as Glory to Glory Fellowship, which initially met at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church on Chili Avenue. The purchase of Good Counsel provided Glory to Glory with its first permanent facility.[vi]
In the ensuing years, Glory to Glory gained a multiracial and multigenerational congregation. The church sponsors regular ministries and periodic retreats for adults as well as young adults and small children.[vii] Major church teachings include expository preaching, Biblical literalism, the coming tribulation and rapture, and complementarian gender roles.[viii]Every Wednesday night, the church hosts religious education classes for entire families.[ix] The church is a supporter of Gospel for Asia, which operates evangelical missionary programs in “South Asia” (i.e, India), and promoted relief efforts for the 2010 Haiti earthquake.[x] Glory to Glory also participates in the Spencerport, N.Y., Assembly of God’s Samaritan Harvest food pantry, which distributes food to the needy in Rochester and sends food shipments abroad.[xi]
In Christ Alone Bible College, a small religious college opposed to “neo-orthodoxy, liberalism, and naturalistic philosophies,” operates out of the Glory to Glory complex. The college offers two religious degrees, the Associate of Christian Studies and the Bachelor of Ministry and Theology, and lacks academic accreditation, but Whitefield Theological Seminary in Florida will accept ICABC alumni as graduate students.[xii] The ICABC faculty reflects Pastor Mills’s combinative spiritual background. ICA director and Glory to Glory assistant pastor Dan Vacco studied theology at Whitefield, which is affiliated with the mainline Protestant Reformed tradition.[xiii] Ken Beaton studied at the Pentecostal Northpoint Bible College, and Sean Andersen studied at the Northeastern Seminary of Roberts-Wesleyan College, Rochester’s conservative Free Methodist college.[xiv]
Pastor Mills began teaching at ICABC by 2016, while studying for a bachelor’s degree from North Star Bible Institute in Hilton, N.Y. Like ICABC, North Star is unaccredited and run in conjunction with a church, in this case First Bible Baptist Church in the northwest Rochester suburb of Hilton.[xv] Such independent colleges are part of the religious right’s creation of a distinctive Christian culture over the last 50 years. What constitutes the “religious right” is often in flux, but the term usually describes the members of evangelical, Pentecostal, nondenominational, and/or fundamentalist churches that seek to advance conservative values and Christianity in U.S. society. Members of the religious right have created their own colleges and social organizations, parallel to but separate from “secular” and mainline-Protestant institutions.
ICABC participates in Biblical Training, an online consortium that uses the Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) model to promote evangelical Christian education. The Biblical Training description of ICABC is clear about the school’s distance from mainline Protestantism and commitment to advancing a conservative form of Christianity:
ICABC was created due to the tremendous amount of disconnect that can occur between theologically conservative seminaries and the local church regarding beneficial instruction in theology and ministry. The passion of the teachers is to see local church members more equipped with the theological, philosophical, apologetical, and pastoral tools that are necessary in order to stand strong for Christ in the contemporary church and secular culture.[xvi]
The Glory to Glory website was redesigned in late 2018. Previously, when I first began this report, the website had a simple homepage, but an extensive multimedia publishing initiative was found in the site’s subsections. Most of Pastor Mills’s sermons were available on the church website in Microsoft Word format. Mills had also published an iTunes podcast for six months in 2017.[xvii] The church’s “Media Ministry” offered free recordings of workshops, sermons, devotional lessons, panel discussions, and retreats.[xviii] ICABC offered free recordings of entire courses, so that members of the church can participate in simple, homework-free versions of MOOCs.[xix] Much, though not all, of this multimedia content has been ported over to the updated Glory to Glory website.[xx]
Glory to Glory’s devotion to multimedia programming reflects the sophisticated media efforts of First Bible Baptist Church, which livestreams its services, maintains a digital archive of video and audio sermons dating back to 1976, and has produced a professional documentary about its history.[xxi] The Internet therefore connects Rochester churches such as Glory to Glory to a larger movement of conservative American Christians, while also providing Rochester’s nondenominational churches with new followers beyond their physical locations.
Endnotes
[i] Marketta Gregory, “Catholics to Shut Down 11 Churches,” Rochester Democrat & Chronicle (Rochester, N.Y.), Saturday, 19 Nov. 2005, copy in St. Monica Archive, St. Monica Roman Catholic Church, Rochester, N.Y. [abbreviated SMA]; Marketta Gregory, “Closures Sadden Resigned Faithful,” Rochester Democrat & Chronicle (Rochester, N.Y.), Saturday, 19 Nov. 2005, copy in SMA; Mike Latona, “Newcomer Priests Settle in at Diocesan Posts,” The Catholic Courier (Rochester, N.Y.), Thursday, 24 Mar. 1994, 5A, copy in SMA.
[ii] Paraphrased from: Catherine L. Albanese, America: Religions and Religion, 5th ed. (Boston: Cengage, 2013), 112, 125–28, 148.
[iii] “About Adult and Teen Challenge USA,” Adult & Teen Challenge, acc. 10 Jun. 2018, www.teenchallengeusa.com/about; “Non-Profit Report: Teen Challenge,” Rochester Business Journal (Rochester, N.Y.), 12 Apr. 2002, acc. 10 Jun. 2018, https://rbj.net/2002/04/12/non-profit-report-teen-challenge/; “Pastor Mark Mills Bio,” His Branches (Rochester, N.Y.), uploaded Feb. 2016, acc. 10 Jun. 2018, http://www.hisbranches.org/site/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/BioPastorMarkMills.pdf.
[iv] “Calvary Chapel History,” Calvary Chapel.com, last modified 2018, acc. 10 Jun. 2018, https://calvarychapel.com/about/calvary-chapel-history; “Pastor Mark Mills Bio”; website for Calvary Chapel (Rochester, N.Y.), acc. 10 Jun. 2018, www.calvaryrochester.com; Christmas M. Beeler and Geraldine Wilkins, “Touching Hearts in New York: Calvary Chapel of Rochester,” Calvary Magazine No. 37 (n.d.), last modified 2017, acc. 10 Jun. 2018, https://calvarymagazine.org/PDFs/Issues_31-40/Issue_37/Calvary_Chapel_Rochester_and_Syracuse_37.pdf. “Continuationist,” complementarianism: “Statement of Faith,” Calvary Chapel.com, last modified 2018, acc. 10 Jun. 2018, https://calvarychapel.com/about/statement-of-faith. Note: In “Touching Hearts,” Rochester Calvary pastor Geoff Brede cites Glory to Glory as a church success story, in contrast to Rochester’s liberal Protestant seminary and churches that prioritize works over faith.
[v] “About Us: Extending the Love of Jesus to Our Community,” His Branches (Rochester, N.Y.), last modified 2018, acc. 10 Jun. 2018, www.hisbranches.org/site/about-us/; “Family Health Care: Comprehensive Family Medical Care,” His Branches (Rochester, N.Y.), last modified 2018, acc. 10 Jun. 2018, www.hisbranches.org/site/programs/health/; “His Branches Annual Banquet of Blessing [featuring Pastor Mark Mills],” His Branches (Rochester, N.Y.), 6 Mar. 2016, acc. 10 Jun. 2018, http://embracingoptions.org/site/hbi-2016-banquet/; “History: Establishing a Presence in the City for Faith-Based Service,” His Branches (Rochester, N.Y.), last modified 2018, acc. 10 Jun. 2018, www.hisbranches.org/site/about-us/history/; “Pastor Mark Mills Bio”; “William R. Morehouse, MD [LinkedIn Profile],” LinkedIn, acc. 10 Jun. 2018, https://www.linkedin.com/in/wrm340/.
[vi] “Pastor Mark Mills Bio”; website for St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church (Rochester, N.Y.), last modified 2018, acc. 10 Jun. 2018, http://www.ststephensrochester.org/.
[vii] “The Fragrance of Christ [Ladies Spring Day Retreat, Saturday, April 29th, 2017],” Glory to Glory Christian Fellowship (Rochester, N.Y.), acc. 10 Jun. 2018, https://web.archive.org/web/20180424161104/http://www.glory2glory.org/ministries/the-fragrance-of-christ/; photos from the 2012 “Castle” retreat, Glory to Glory Christian Fellowship (Rochester, N.Y.), acc. 10 Jun. 2018, https://web.archive.org/web/20180809013834/http://www.glory2glory.org/whats-happening/2012-castle/; “Rejoice: In Thy Presence is Fullness [2013 Women’s Spring Retreat Day flyer],” Glory to Glory Christian Fellowship (Rochester, N.Y.); “Women’s Fellowship,” Glory to Glory Christian Fellowship (Rochester, N.Y.), acc. 10 Jun. 2018, https://web.archive.org/web/20180809021243/http://www.glory2glory.org/ministries/womens-fellowship/.
[viii] “Expository Preaching,” Glory to Glory Christian Fellowship (Rochester, N.Y.), acc. 10 Jun. 2018, https://web.archive.org/web/20180812010443/http://www.glory2glory.org/welcome/about-us/; “Men’s Fellowship,” Glory to Glory Christian Fellowship (Rochester, N.Y.), acc. 10 Jun. 2018, https://web.archive.org/web/20180418061936/http://www.glory2glory.org/ministries/mens-fellowship/; “What We Believe,” Glory to Glory Christian Fellowship (Rochester, N.Y.), acc. 10 Jun. 2018, https://web.archive.org/web/20180809020808/http://www.glory2glory.org/welcome/what-we-believe/; “Women’s Fellowship.”
[ix] “Children’s Ministry,” Glory to Glory Christian Fellowship (Rochester, N.Y.), acc. 10 Jun. 2018, https://web.archive.org/web/20180809023512/http://www.glory2glory.org/ministries/childrens-ministry/; “Youth Ministry,” Glory to Glory Christian Fellowship (Rochester, N.Y.), acc. 10 Jun. 2018, https://web.archive.org/web/20180420082549/http://www.glory2glory.org/ministries/youth-ministry/.
[x] “Gospel for Asia,” Glory to Glory Christian Fellowship (Rochester, N.Y.), acc. 10 Jun. 2018, https://web.archive.org/web/20180809025635/http://www.glory2glory.org/missions/gospel-for-asia/; “Helping Haiti,” Glory to Glory Christian Fellowship (Rochester, N.Y.), Internet Archive Wayback Machine, captured 2 Jan. 2011, acc. 20 Apr. 2018, https://web.archive.org/web/20110102135858/http://www.glory2glory.org:80/helping-haiti/.
[xi] “Who We Help,” Samaritan Harvest, Spencerport Assembly of God (Spencerport, N.Y.), acc. 15 Apr. 2018, http://samaritanharvest.com/Who_We_Help.html.
[xii] “In Christ Alone,” In Christ Alone Biblical College, Glory to Glory Christian Fellowship (Rochester, N.Y.), acc. 10 Jun. 2018, https://web.archive.org/web/20180809014028/http://www.glory2glory.org/bible-college/.
[xiii] “Dan Vacco [LinkedIn Profile,” LinkedIn, acc. 10 Jun. 2018, https://www.linkedin.com/in/dan-vacco-01120318; Whitefield Theological Seminary homepage, Reformed.info, last modified 2018, acc. 10 Jun. 2018, https://seminary.reformed.info. Note that I borrow the term “combinative” from Albanese, America: Religions and Religion.
[xiv] “About Benjamin Titus (B.T.) Roberts,” Roberts Wesleyan College (Rochester, N.Y.), acc. 10 Jun. 2018, https://www.roberts.edu/about/history/bt-roberts/; “FAQ,” Northpoint Bible College and Graduate School (Haverhill, MA), last modified 2017, acc. 10 Jun. 2018, https://northpoint.edu/primary-faq/; “Teachers,” In Christ Alone Bible College, Glory to Glory Christian Fellowship (Rochester, N.Y.), acc. 10 Jun. 2018, https://web.archive.org/web/20180809023237/http://www.glory2glory.org/bible-college/teachers/; “What We Believe,” Roberts Wesleyan College (Rochester, N.Y.), acc. 10 Jun. 2018, https://www.roberts.edu/about/what-we-believe/.
[xv] “About Us: Message from the Director,” North Star Bible Institute (Hilton, N.Y.), last modified 2018, acc. 10 Jun. 2018, www.nsbi.info/about-us/; “Pastor Mark Mills Bio.”
[xvi] Block quote from: “In Christ Alone Bible College,” Biblical Training.org, acc. 10 Jun. 2018, https://www.biblicaltraining.org/lp/icabc. For more information on Biblical Training, see: FAQ,” Biblical Training, acc. 10 Jun. 2018, https://www.biblicaltraining.org/partners.
[xvii] Mark Mills, “Glory to Glory Christian Fellowship,” iTunes, last modified 18 Nov. 2017, acc. 10 Jun. 2018, https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/glory-to-glory-christian-fellowship/id370848778?mt=2. Note that this link is no longer functional and the podcast is no longer on iTunes as of April 2019. See also: Mark Mills, “Pastor Mark’s Archives,” Glory to Glory Christian Fellowship (Rochester, N.Y.), acc. 10 Jun. 2018, https://web.archive.org/web/20180809021445/http://www.glory2glory.org/pastor-marks-desk/pastor-marks-archives/.
[xviii] Mark Mills, John Piedmonte, and Ken Beaton, “Fundamentals of the Faith [Audio Course],” Glory to Glory Christian Fellowship (Rochester, N.Y.), acc. 10 Jun. 2018, https://web.archive.org/web/20180809023506/http://www.glory2glory.org/messages/fundamentals-of-the-faith/; “Media Ministry,” Glory to Glory Christian Fellowship (Rochester, N.Y.), acc. 10 Jun. 2018, https://web.archive.org/web/20180809022738/http://www.glory2glory.org/ministries/media-ministry/; “Men’s Fellowship”; “Midweek Studies,” Glory to Glory Christian Fellowship (Rochester, N.Y.), acc. 10 Jun. 2018, https://web.archive.org/web/20180809021737/http://www.glory2glory.org/messages/midweek-studies/; “Sunday Morning Sermons,” Glory to Glory Christian Fellowship (Rochester, N.Y.), acc. 10 Jun. 2018, https://web.archive.org/web/20180315200857/http://www.glory2glory.org/messages/sunday-morning-sermons/; “Sunday Evening Archives,” Glory to Glory Christian Fellowship (Rochester, N.Y.), acc. 10 Jun. 2018, https://web.archive.org/web/20180809022507/http://www.glory2glory.org/messages/sunday-evening-archives/.
[xix] “The Book of Acts [Audio Course],” In Christ Alone Bible College, Glory to Glory Christian Fellowship (Rochester, N.Y.), acc. 10 Jun. 2018, https://web.archive.org/web/20180809021433/http://www.glory2glory.org/bible-college/the-book-of-acts/; “Church History [Audio Course],” In Christ Alone Bible College, Glory to Glory Christian Fellowship (Rochester, N.Y.), acc. 10 Jun. 2018, https://web.archive.org/web/20180812010313/http://www.glory2glory.org/bible-college/church-history/; “The Doctrine of Man [Audio Course),” In Christ Alone Bible College, Glory to Glory Christian Fellowship (Rochester, N.Y.), acc. 10 Jun. 2018, https://web.archive.org/web/20180809023742/http://www.glory2glory.org/bible-college/the-doctrine-of-man/.
[xx] Homepage, Glory to Glory Christian Fellowship (Rochester, N.Y.), acc. 29 Apr. 2019, https://glory2glory.org/index.html.
[xxi] Examples of First Bible Baptist Church’s media: “FBBC — The First 50 Years,” YouTube, uploaded by “First Bible Baptist Church” [YouTube account], uploaded 4 Dec. 2016, acc. 10 Jun. 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=36&v=YYDXyTJaACk; “First Bible Baptist Church [YouTube Channel],” YouTube, acc. 10 Jun. 2018, https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnRyW3E83DvaBwVYPNq290A; “First Bible Baptist Church Sermon Library,” First Bible Baptist Church (Hilton, N.Y.), last modified 2018, acc. 10 Jun. 2018, https://www.fbbc.info/sermonlibrary/; “Media,” First Bible Baptist Church (Hilton, N.Y.), last modified 2018, acc. 10 Jun. 2018, https://www.fbbc.info/media/.
