In the heart of Baltimore’s Cherry Hill neighborhood, a once-traditional church is charting a new path, embracing the digital age, and welcoming a diverse flock of worshippers — both online and in-person. South Church Baltimore, led by Pastor Aaron Hannah, has found itself at the forefront of a religious revolution, one that challenges long-held notions of what it means to gather and praise.

“I was totally shocked,” admits Hannah, recalling his initial resistance to online worship. “I always thought online worship was OK. But of course, I assumed in-person was better. 

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Raised under the watchful eye of his father’s pastorate, Hannah did whatever was needed — from leading praise and worship to driving the church shuttle bus. But his strict apostolic upbringing instilled in him a firm belief: worship, with all its pomp and ceremony, belonged within the hallowed walls of a church building, a sacred space to honor the one true audience.

The COVID-19 pandemic forced him to reconsider his perspective on hybrid worship, and what he discovered was a revelation. “I learned the people had as much commitment to the church as those who came into the building,” he says. 

A Virtual Spiritual Home 

As South Church began livestreaming its services, Hannah witnessed a surge of new faces, with as many as 200 people joining a single virtual worship service.

“I’ve never seen that many at one time in my entire life. And not just join, but continue to come and be regular givers just like the in-person members.”

He found he had a greater turnout during outside activities because of the live stream. 

“We had always had great healthy crowds. But this was a brand new set of folks that you would never have touched,” Hannah says. 

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Not just people new to the church, but also people who were willing to give church another chance.

“People who’d been hurt in the church, and were willing to give God another chance,” he explains.

He says his nephew told him, “You know Uncle Rusty, you have a lot of strippers on your live stream,” which just cracked him up. 

“I didn’t care about their backgrounds or their prior experiences; I just wanted them to be exposed to the love of God,” Hannah says. 

Some of the newcomers even were “using profanity to express their joy at what was going on.” But this didn’t bother Hannah. “This is the crowd Jesus would have gone after,” he says. And he found they were eager to be baptized in large numbers.

Patricia Victorious, a member of South Church, echoes Hannah’s sentiments.

“South Church to me is a new way of life and thinking; it’s a mix of excitement and joy to know that we are all like-minded people unified by our own faults and insecurities,” Victorious says.

“It’s not where I met God, but it’s where God placed me after countless battles with internal battles, scars, secrets, abandonment issues, and not knowing my place in this world and thoughts of why am I here?”

A Nurturing Environment

Cherry Hill is often considered the “red-headed stepchild” of Maryland cities, and characterized as a seat of crime. But the truth is it’s one of the few cities in the country that, thanks to the Safe Streets Initiative, had no homicides in 2021.

Previous generations found the city a nurturing environment in which to raise children and grandchildren. In this atmosphere, Hannah operated a barber shop for over 20 years and seeded relationships with folks who now worship with him at South Church.

He established the church with his late father, the well-known Bishop Michael David Hannah, who was then-presiding prelate of the Pentecostal Assemblies of the World. Now even those who are not Christians are comfortable in regular attendance at South Church.

As Victorious says, Hannah and South Church gave her “reassurance that Jesus was still around, he still loved me, and he still wanted me to be a part of something greater than myself.”

That’s the kind of joy Hannah hopes to share with even his hybrid members as they accept his invitation to share worship, a meal, and maybe, baptism at the next monthly homecoming Sunday.