“I was the class nerd, the girl with brown hair and glasses who always had her homework done,” she said. Who’d have thought the quiet, bookish Etting, valedictorian of the Class of 1977, would wind up as mayor of Harford County’s bustling hub?

“I want to have a say in where Bel Air is going,” said the onetime attorney and current town commissioner. “As it grows and changes, we need to respect and honor our past and keep the town family-friendly.”

Etting, 65, attended The Johns Hopkins University before earning a post-graduate degree at the University of Maryland School of Law. She worked 27 years in the Harford County Law Department before turning to politics in 2021.

Here are three things you may not know about Etting:

She’s an able do-it-yourselfer.

“I am handy. I can install faucets and shower heads, scrape wallpaper and change toilet flappers and the lock on the front door. I put up our mailbox. My husband doesn’t like to do that stuff, but it gives me a nice feeling of accomplishment. I mean, when you cook a great meal, all that’s left are the dirty dishes — but change a shower head, and it’ll be there for years.”

Sewing keeps the mayor humming.

“I like making something out of a flat piece of fabric; it uses another side of my brain. I made my own clothes when I was pregnant, and now, I’m the go-to for our grandchildren whenever a stuffed animal loses an arm. They say, ‘This is broken and needs to go to NaNa’s.’

“The sound of a sewing machine is so relaxing. I made Halloween costumes for our kids, from Batman to a medieval princess. Our son liked his dinosaur costume so much that, at five [years old], he’d come home and put it on and sit there, reading a book.”

Her diplomas did her parents proud.

“I was the first in my family to graduate from college. Neither of my parents had that opportunity — my dad was one of eight Irish kids and had to leave school to work — but they valued education. In eighth grade, my father bought me a Texas instrument calculator for $150, a lot of money then. But he knew I’d need it for high school.

“An uncle said that I’d never finish college, that I’d get my ‘Mrs. degree’ instead; that was the opinion of people in his generation. But I was internally driven, and my parents fed on that.”

Reversible crossbody tote bag by Ilse Jacobsen, $114

Boutique 44, 140A N. Bond St., Bel Air

This braided soft faux-leather bag offers double styling options as it is reversible.

Laser-engraved charcuterie board, $20

Bay Breeze Soap & Gifts, 463 Franklin St., Havre de Grace

Made by local artist Kimi Ferro and perfect for making party platters.

Pub Quiz game, $24.95

Glyph, 212 N. Washington St., Havre de Grace

Gather your friends around a bonfire for a night of fun and laughs.

Small Swiss butter board, $20.95, and mouse cheese spreader, $8.95

Glyph, 212 N. Washington St., Havre de Grace

A perfect late-night snack pairing. Just add a glass of wine.

Pirate Soap, $7

Bay Breeze Soap & Gifts, 463 Franklin St., Havre de Grace

Locally made and scented for the season.

Porcelain mug by Rifle Paper, $21.95

Glyph, 212 N. Washington St., Havre de Grace

The dog days of summer might be over but embrace pumpkin spice latte season.

48-color pencil set, $14.99

Glyph, 212 N. Washington Street, Havre de Grace.

Find your inner artist and sketch your surroundings.

Kara frayed hem denim jacket KUT from the Kloth, $89.95; collared silky sleeveless blouse, $44.95 by Naked Zebra; gold filled link necklace, $34.95

Boutique 44, 140A N. Bond St., Bel Air

Everyone should have these fall fashion staples.

Wood slice ornament, $25

Bay Breeze Soap & Gifts, 463 Franklin St., Havre de Grace

Stocking-stuffer alert. It’s never too early.

Katia carved wooden earrings, $24.95

Boutique 44, 140A N. Bond St., Bel Air

These lightweight, geometric earrings will compliment any sweater or jacket.

“He was so lonely,” Chizmar recalled and grinned. “I always saw the world differently than the other people around me. Even then, I was exploring the dark side.”

Now, the Bel Air resident is an acclaimed author who has penned six novels including four bestsellers. Two were co-written with horror icon Stephen King, who praises Chizmar’s “really interesting, innovative ideas.”

Chizmar has co-authored screenplays for the big and small screen, including one episode of Showtime’s “Masters of Horror” anthology series, and two episodes of NBC’s “Fear Itself.”

What’s more, the horror magazine-turned-publishing company founded by Chizmar when he was a senior at the University of Maryland is thriving. Cemetery Dance Publications, now in its 36th year, has published a roster of A-list authors from Ray Bradbury to William Peter Blatty of “The Exorcist” fame.

Even Chizmar’s personal life is rosy.

He’s still married to Kara, the green-eyed girl he fell in love with as a kid. His seventh novel, “Memorials,” will be published in October, one month after the couple’s eldest son, Billy, releases his debut novel, “Them.” The second and youngest son in the family, Noah, is a star lacrosse player at the University of Virginia, where he has displayed a toughness on the field that has been praised by Sports Illustrated.

So life for the 58-year-old Chizmar is looking pretty, well, sunny.

“When my friends finally started reading my work, they’re like, ‘Rich, where does this all this solemn stuff come from?'” he recalled.

“A bookseller in New Hampshire who got an advance copy of my new novel, “Memorials,” messaged me yesterday and said, ‘I’ve had nightmares two nights in a row. You’re going to mess people up.'”

An expression of pure joy crossed Chizmar’s face.

“I just loved that,” he said. “I told her, ‘I can do no better, unless I can make people cry.'”

He knows that an awful lot of people crave being scared out of their wits, though exactly how that mechanism works remains mysterious. What is it about feeling bad that makes some people feel so good?

Behavioral scientist Haiyang Yang, an associate professor at the Johns Hopkins University’s Carey Business School, speculated in a university blog post last fall that fans of horror and suspense are unusually self-assured. People who flock to scary movies are confident they can overcome the obstacles fate throws in their paths, he wrote — a description that fits Chizmar like the cover of a book.

“When we first began publishing the magazine, I would go out to the newspaper box in front of my apartment building at 1 a.m.,” Chizmar said.

“I knew that by that time, no one was going to buy what was left. I would plunk a quarter into the box and take out all the newspapers and use them to pack up the books. We shipped them in boxes we found in dumpsters. I remember thinking, ‘Can you imagine being successful enough to buy boxes to pack your products in?'”

Chizmar and King have known each other professionally since 1989. At the time, King had been famous for nearly two decades, and when he sent Chizmar a signed promotional blurb for the fledgling “Cemetery Dance” magazine, it pretty much guaranteed that the new publisher could continue paying his bills for at least the next few months.

Over time, and after thousands of text exchanges and good-natured jibes about the rising and falling fortunes of the Baltimore Orioles and Boston Red Sox, King became familiar with the younger man’s fiction. And when he found himself facing writer’s block, he turned to Chizmar for help.

The result was “Gwendy’s Button Box,” the first novel of a trilogy. The first and last books were written jointly by the two authors, while the second was penned by Chizmar alone.

“Rich basically bailed me out,” King said.

“He has a good feel for suburban life, for middle-class Baltimore and its backyard barbecues and the room in the basement where the kids hang out. I would call what he does ‘middle-class fantasy horror make-believe, with a kind of ‘Twilight Zone’ feel.'”

Even when Chizmar was growing up in Harford County, the youngest of five children of an airman who worked on the Aberdeen Proving Ground and an Ecuadorian homemaker, he was possessed of a keen sense that the best moments in life are fleeting.

He remembers one time in particular when that revelation struck him hard.

“I was about 14,” he recalled. “We had been sledding, but all my friends had gone home. It was dusk and the snow was falling and the lights were glowing. I could see my house off in the distance. I thought, ‘Nothing is ever going to be the same after this. We’re all growing up. People are going to leave, and some of us are never coming back.'”

That’s the moment that made Chizmar a writer.

“I am the one who is cursed and blessed to remember everything,” he said. “It helps to put it down on paper. I became a writer to help people make sense of the world.”

Perhaps. But it also seems likely that Chizmar became a horror writer because he likes to surprise people and make them laugh. His acute sense of life’s darker moments is paired with an equally well-developed mischievous streak.

A case in point are his two cinema-verite books, “Chasing the Boogeyman” and “Becoming the Boogeyman,” in which Chizmar goes to great lengths to trick his readers into thinking they’re reading a memoir instead of a novel.

The books are narrated by a young man named Richard Chizmar who moved back home with his parents to save money for his upcoming wedding — all details pulled from the author’s life. The books mix historic events, including a real-life criminal known in the 1980s as the Phantom Fondler, with a made-up serial killer.

The novel even includes black-and-white photos purporting to show the “killer” being handcuffed by police officers. In reality, the murderer and cops were costumed actors, and Chizmar took the photos himself.

“I’m just a big kid,” he admitted.

That turned out to be a very good thing. The author’s innate playfulness has helped him cope with occasional but genuine hardships, including his encounter at age 29 with a real-lifeserial killer: testicular cancer.

“After I was diagnosed, I had two operations,” Chizmar said. “And then my doctors declared me clear. They said there was a 99% chance the cancer would never come back.”

But six months later, Chizmar went to the emergency room after he found himself once again in great pain.

“My poor doctor had to tell me the cancer had spread to both lungs, my liver, my stomach and my lymph nodes,” he said. “I was given a 50% chance of survival.”

And still, the snowman refused to melt.

“I said, ‘If anyone can beat this, it will be me,” Chizmar recalled. “I told my doctors, ‘Tell me what to do, and I will do it better than any patient you have ever had.'”

As he had vowed that he would, Chizmar recovered fully. But even as he and Kara rejoiced, they were hit with another setback.

“After 12 weeks of chemotherapy, the doctors told us that so much poison was being shot into my body that we would not be able to have children the natural way,” he said.”But five years later, there came Billy. And four years after that, there came Noah. I wake up grateful every day.”

More than most of us, Chizmar knows how easily human existence can be snuffed out. But instead of frightening him, he views that painful reality as a cause for celebration.

“Life is fragile, but I’m an optimist,” he said, and then segued into a related thought:

“People tell me that the good thing about my stories is that they always contain a ray of hope.”

“I always wanted to compete with the best crabcakes in the world,” said Kevin Grubbs, owner and operator of Latitude Seafood Co.

The first location opened in Midlothian, Virginia, in 2015, followed by a second in Stony Point, Virginia, in 2018. With the success of these initial ventures, Grubbs and his partners began exploring new opportunities. Grubbs has a personal connection to the area, having visited family in Baltimore, and one of the co-owners, Vishal Patel, lives near Bel Air.

Before opening the Bel Air location last spring, the owners revisited their crabcake recipe to ensure it met the high standards of Marylanders. Grubbs personally tested dozens of recipes to perfect the dish.

“That’s the best part of the job,” said Grubbs of the countless crabcakes he tried during the process of perfecting theirs.

Located in the Festival at Bel Air shopping plaza, the restaurant offers an ambience that feels worlds away from the outlet mall. Large windows allow natural light to flood the space, giving Latitude Seafood Co. a bright and spacious atmosphere.

Ingredients are a top priority for Grubbs and his team. The crabcakes are made entirely from jumbo lump crab, and all recipes are crafted from scratch.

“We’re not just putting steamed seafood on a plate,” said Grubbs. “We offer unique dishes that you’re not going to find at a normal place.”

Latitude Seafood Co. is “True Blue Certified,” meaning the Maryland Department of Agriculture has verified that they only serve local blue crabs.

“Because of the temperatures of the water, they store more fat in them, and that’s where you get that yellow mustard inside the meat,” Grubbs explained. “You’re not going to find that in any other crab meat.”

The menu at Latitude Seafood Co. is designed to cater to all tastes. The seafood pasta is loaded with shrimp, scallops, lump crab, with a light basil lemon cream. For those who prefer other options, the restaurant offers creative chicken dishes and high-quality steaks. Daily specials provide innovative choices for regular patrons, ensuring there’s always something new to try. To finish an evening at Latitude Seafood Co., the ample dessert menu features everything from ice cream sandwiches to crème brûlée.

Latitude Seafood Co.

5 Bel Air South Pkwy., Suite 1559, Bel Air. 443-402-1926. latitudeseafoodco.com

Immortalized by a male quartet in the movie “The Music Man,”  the genre breached stereotypes long ago.

“People think of barbershop music and they think of four guys in straw hats. Well, we’re not them,” said Beth Rupert, a founding member of the UCC. “We say that men invented [the barbershop style] and women perfected it.”

The chorus, 32 strong, will perform at the Bel Air Festival for the Arts on Sept. 17. Its eclectic repertoire ranges from pop to patriotic, and from show tunes to standards. In a one-hour concert, the women, ages 21 to 81, might sing everything from “Over The Rainbow” to “Rock Around The Clock.” They’ll harmonize familiar tunes by Doris Day and Bonnie Raitt. One minute, they’ll belt out “The Star-Spangled Banner”; the next, a hit by Fleetwood Mac.

Members include teachers, lawyers, bank tellers and new mothers who arrive, babes in chest slings, for Monday practice (7 p.m. at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Aberdeen).

“We’re a sisterhood, on and offstage, with a camaraderie that hooks you from the start,” said Rupert, 73, of Bel Air. Performed in sync, barbershop triggers a natural high, she said:

“When all the voices are in tune, it creates a vibration, and you can feel the harmony.”

How good is the group? Three times, in recent years, the UCC has dispatched regional competition and advanced to the Sweet Adeline Internationals, in 2011, 2012 and 2014.

Twenty times a year, the UCC performs at town functions, senior centers, fund-raisers and nursing homes. Most members are middle-aged, like Carol Klein, 66, of Bel Air.

“Singing barbershop provides a sense of relief, and it keeps your brain sharp,” said Klein, who joined the group in 1982. “I’ll sing until they put me in my grave.”

Tyler Horton directs the chorus. At 30, he is barely half the age of many members, a gap not lost on the group.

“Most of us have shoes that are as old as Tyler,” Rupert said. “But barbershop was made for him; he can hear a bad note from a mile off.”

Klein described Horton’s aural skills in another way.

“Musically, Tyler has the ears of an elephant,” she said.

Director of music and liturgy at St. Margaret Catholic Church in Bel Air, Horton’s roots in the group run deep. His late grandmother sang with the UCC, and Horton’s goal is to rebuild the chorus to its pre-pandemic numbers.

“We’re on the upswing,” he said. “Women who never sang barbershop have joined and fallen in love with the style. The hobby really grabs you. One year, while on a ski trip, Carol [Klein] broke her pelvis and was back at practice within two weeks.

“We have a saying that ‘You come for the music and stay for the people.’ ”

Get Centered Wellness, a sister company to the Center for Trauma, Stress and Anxiety, takes a physical healing approach to addressing mental health for its clients.

“Our approach to healing comes from this mental health background of knowing what stress and trauma and anxiety do to our bodies,” said owner Michelle Perry, who opened CTSA in 2016. “A lot of people in mental health are feeling like it’s one thing to talk about it, and it’s another thing to learn how to heal your body, using your body.”

The body-based healing practice began as yoga classes alongside therapy at CTSA, but met with the high demand from her clients, Perry opened Get Centered Wellness as its own company last October. Since then, it has expanded to offer a variety of yoga classes, reiki, tarot card reading, eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy, ketamine-assisted therapy and more, while serving its therapy clients and the greater community.

Perry began her own mental health journey in college. Under the stress of studying veterinary medicine and on her school’s competitive swim team, she sought out therapy from the advice of her coach. That prompted her to change her major to psychology and in 2009, started working hands-on in the community with the Army’s Public Health Center at Aberdeen Proving Ground.

She opened CTSA with the goal of seeing clients “on the side” during her day-to-day work, but it has since grown for Perry, who now has several licensed therapists on staff and two locations in Harford and Baltimore counties. It wasn’t long into this that she began experimenting with yoga for her clients alongside talk therapy.

“The clients who were involved in that were having way better outcomes, healing so much more quickly and learning how to manage stress much better. And so from there, we’re like, let’s take the leap and make this a bigger thing and open it up to the broader community,” she said.

Yoga is Get Centered Wellness’s most popular service. From energy medicine yoga to restorative vinyasa, many clients have memberships that allow them to attend weeknight and Saturday morning classes. Classes are capped at 10 people to give each person the attention they need.

As a CTSA partner, clients of the clinic may have the yoga classes covered by their insurance, including services by a therapist who is on-site at each weekday class.

“I love that Get Centered Wellness takes that mind, body, spirit approach,” said Tyler Mauler, who has been teaching at Get Centered Wellness since it opened. “The fact there’s always a therapist there to provide some level of emotional support allows us to go a lot deeper in the classes and do some really amazing work. …I think it really expedites the therapeutic process.”

The studio also provides yoga materials for each session, including mats, blocks and blankets, because the goal is for everyone to feel relaxed and not have to worry about any preparation, according to Perry.

Holyn Ivy-Bogert has been coming to Get Centered Wellness since January. As a CTSA client, she enjoys the yoga and reiki sessions as a way to decompress from her work as a chaplain at a local hospice.

“The biggest takeaway for me is when I’m feeling stressed or scattered or anxious is to just take a pause, take a breath, and just really connect into that grounded place I have during class,” Ivy-Bogert said. “I can just have that moment to refresh myself before I go back to my daily work and life.”

With positive feedback from her clients and the growing demand for classes at Get Centered Wellness, Perry is looking forward to expanding her services, including wellness retreats outside the area. She hopes to bring more of these classes to CTSA’s second location in Nottingham.

Get Centered Wellness

20 E. Lee St., Bel Air, 443-567-7038. getcenteredwellness.com

During Prohibition (1919-1933), towns like Bel Air, Havre de Grace and Darlington housed speakeasies, which served parched patrons on the sly — often with a nod from local lawmen.

“Harford County officials didn’t bother to enforce [Prohibition],” said Carol Deibel, 79, a local historian in Bel Air. “There are stories of how when the sheriff of Havre de Grace learned the ‘feds’ were coming to raid, he would notify the taverns so they could put certain objects in their front windows to signal that they weren’t serving that day.”

In Bel Air, a favorite gin joint was Mrs. Dunnigan’s Hotel & Restaurant, at Courtland and Bond streets, opposite the county courthouse. Originally a hotel, the hostelry had a bar in the back that was owned by the town’s court clerk. Rumor has it that, in the 1920s, a tunnel linked the speakeasy to the courthouse.

On Sept. 21, the Bel Air Alliance will pay homage to Dunnigan’s with a flapper-era celebration at the Bel Air Armory featuring food, drinks, jazz and gaming tables. It’s an overt salute to a clandestine time in the town’s 150-year-old history.

Not that the hooch didn’t make headlines. “Flagrant whiskey running,” trumpeted a story in The Sun in November 1920, citing “wild and thrilling tales” of rum runners roaring through Harford and Cecil counties.

The Sun recounted “desperate flights and pursuits in the dead of night, punctuated by pistol shots as the machines dash through villages and open country. Several farmers pointed out that when they go to bed at night, it is not improbable that their families will be awakened before morning by a fusillade of shots.”

“At least one young woman, residents of the region believe, is a full-fledged bootlegger, driving an automobile with an abandon fully equal to that of her competitors and carrying a pistol of heavy caliber that she knows how to use.”

The Sun and Bel Air Aegis were rife with woolly accounts of run-ins between rum runners and the law. In May 1924, a swarm of 15 federal agents descended on Havre de Grace, raided 18 establishments, made 15 arrests and seized two truckloads of liquor. During the raids, the wife of one saloon keeper shoved a pistol in the face of a lawman and pulled the trigger; the gun misfired.

Afterward, The Sun reported, “When the dust from the agents’ autos had subsided, Havre de Grace found itself almost as dry as the dusty roads themselves.”

But not for long.

What made Harford a haven for moonshiners? An influx of rural folk. Two horse racing tracks. And the county’s proximity to the state line.

“The 1920s saw a tremendous amount of migration here, from West Virginia, Kentucky and North Carolina — farmers from the hills of Appalachia, looking for jobs,” Deibel said. They found work at Aberdeen Proving Ground, built in 1917, and at the Conowingo Dam project begun in 1926. Meanwhile, as some had done back home, the rustics built stills and made booze.

At the same time, the bustling racetracks in Bel Air and Havre de Grace attracted mobsters and other rascals out to make a quick buck. Why not hawk alcohol? Bootleggers north of the Mason-Dixon Line found they could steal into Maryland, load up on whiskey and slip back into Pennsylvania, where federal agents couldn’t follow.

“It was certainly the most exciting time to live here,” said Annie McLhinney-Cochran, 66, a resident of Havre de Grace and history buff whose grandfather was once mayor. “People poured into town, during racing season, to gamble and drink. Al Capone stayed at the Hotel Chesapeake. There were pool halls and prostitutes; people called the town ‘Little Chicago.’

“It seemed everyone was bootlegging. There were speakeasies on every corner and distilleries in the woods and in people’s basements. Booze flowed up and down the roads, the railroad and the [Susquehanna] River.”

Gin joints weren’t the lawmen’s only targets. Again, in Havre de Grace, lawmen stormed into the Blue Bird lunchroom in 1925 and confiscated three cases of moonshine stashed in soft drink bottles.

In 1922, Prohibition agents raided the farm of Nelson Pace, near Street, smashed a 100-gallon still, and confiscated 1,600 gallons of mash (crushed grain and water) and 52 gallons of corn whiskey. Five people were arrested; two escaped in the nearby woods. Soon after, a sting in Cardiff yielded another still and 85 gallons of spirits. A 500-gallon still, churning out whiskey near Deer Creek, was seized in 1924. Two years later, a raid near Dublin nailed moonshiners there.

Sometimes, revenuers managed to catch their prey on the fly. One night in 1920, The Aegis reported, eight feds manned a checkpoint on the outskirts of Bel Air between 11 p.m. and daybreak. The search paid off: Four drivers were arrested, each carrying eight to 12 cases of whiskey “for which the owners could not give a good account.”

Also that year, a bootlegger being chased in the wee hours by a motorcycle cop near Kingsville crashed his car into a locust tree, breaking both legs and destroying 30 quarts of whiskey. Another pursuit, in 1923, ended when the culprit, in a curious effort to escape, spun his vehicle around, near Bel Air, and smashed it into that of his pursuers, deliberately destroying 350 gallons of liquor.

One bootlegger, his car filled with 150 gallons of brew, led agents on a cat-and-mouse dash through much of the county in July 1933. At one point, The Sun reported, he sped down a paved road toward Hickory, then turned onto a dirt road where his auto sideswiped a steamroller and turned upside down.

That same month, a bootlegger hauling 40 gallons of whiskey led federal agents on a wild booze chase from Hickory to Bel Air. As they neared town, the moonshiner revved up his Plymouth coupe; the agents, in a dark Ford sedan, followed suit.

“Both automobiles whizzed down Pennsylvania Avenue and entered Churchville Road without stopping, the Plymouth swaying all over the road, while the officers’ car ran up on Mr. Stanley Preston’s lawn,” The Aegis reported.

“At that point, the [bootlegger] turned to the right at Hiser’s service station and into the heavy Main Street traffic. The rum runner attempted another means of escape. Parking his car opposite the post office, he jumped out and fled. After a speedy footrace [in which local residents joined in], the culprit was caught hiding under the porch of Stanley Preston’s residence.”

His efforts were ill-timed. Five months later, the 21st Amendment became law and Prohibition was dead.

Nominations close July 21 at 5 p.m.

Voting is open from Aug. 18 at 9 a.m. to Sept. 1 at 5 p.m.

Winners will appear in the November issue of Harford Magazine.

Thank you for your participation.

Don’t see the link? Click here.

Here are three things you may not know about Romero:

Flaming batons catch her fancy.

“I’ve twirled fire; it’s the same as baton twirling except for the fire blazing at both ends. I love to see peoples’ reactions — everyone is, like, awestruck.  At first, when I did it [at age 15] I was a little hesitant, but it’s the coolest thing ever. I’ve burned my arm slightly, but nothing major. Unfortunately, here at Stevenson, I can’t twirl fire on the [athletic] field because it’s turf and they keep it pristine, but I’m looking for every opportunity to do it here somewhere.”

She loved ballet … the second time around.

“As a toddler, my parents put me into dance, but I was not a fan. In pictures of me, at 2 or 3 [years old] in my baby tap and ballet classes, I look very much upset. I think I had more energy than I could let out in those classes. So I got into gymnastics and then came back to dance at 9, and I was absolutely in love. I like to move freely and to leap so high that I almost feel I have wings. My high school track coach tried to recruit me, but I didn’t have the time.”

Romero has a taste for fine arts.

“I helped paint a floor-to-ceiling mural on a wall in Mucho Gusto, a restaurant in Bel Air. The summer before my senior year, four of us [art students at John Carroll] got to do it. We painted bricks in muted colors of brown and yellow [as a backdrop] and then did a rainbow tapestry draped around a sombrero. It took us two days and they provided us lunch, which was greatly appreciated.”

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