Newspaper Article

Rev Drummond out of Delco
By William Alnor
Delaware County Daily Times December 26,1988

PHILADELPHIA - "Private property - No trespassing" reads the sign mounted on a chain which seals off the parking lot at the Church of Our Saviour in Concordville. The 27-acre site, which includes a chapel and a vast school building with two sprawling wings, is now abandoned.

No services have been held at the site in several weeks. In recent days, the Rev. Frederick Drummond, the controversial pastor of the church, has moved the church offices to an apartment-office complex in the Art Museum area of Center City.

Drummond has also moved with his family and other high ranking members of the church to the Parkway House apartments, 2201Pennsylvania Ave., Philadelphia.

And the church's new name - the Evangelical Spiritfilled Church of America (ESCA) - is now official. All four church telephones at the church campus in Concordville were disconnected last week. Calls are forwarded to a new office also located at the Pennsylvania Avenue address. According to the telephone company, the new phone number is registered to ESCA executive offices.

The church move marks the fourth time in 20 years Drummond has moved his church. He started out in 1968 in Pacifica, Calif., shifted his church to Springfield, Mo., and then to Concordville. His churches have gone by a variety of different names during that same time period, with each name change following a persistent wave of bad publicity directed at him and his congregation.

Drummond, a native of South Africa, and his church have been surrounded by controversy for the past decade due to recurring reports of abusive leadership and financial problems.

In recent months Drummond, taking the titles of "father apostle" and "presiding bishop of ESCA," has ordered his church split up into five smaller churches under his control in different parts of the Delaware Valley.

In recent sermons Drummond has said the reorganization is part of a new plan to affect the entire Delaware Valley with his message. He has also announced plans to try to restart his television and radio ministries.

The spin-off churches are located in the Main Line; South Jersey; Wilmington, Del.; at the Hotel Regency opposite the Granite Run Mall, Baltimore Pike, Middletown; and at the Airport Marriot Hotel in Southwest Philadelphia. Under the reorganization plan all five churches meet for a joint service at the Philadelphia Civic Center during the fourth Sunday of each month.

The Concordville Campus has been on the market for $3.2 million for the past six months. Although members of the church have recently been telling relatives that the church has been sold for $1.7 million, the listing agent at the Jackson-Cross firm said he knows of no deal in the works at-this time.