Reverend Dr. Allyn E. Waller will serve as Director of Spiritual Formation and Student-Athlete Mentorship for Eastern University Football. Dr. Waller is the Senior Pastor of Enon Tabernacle Baptist Church in Philadelphia.
In leading Enon, Dr. Waller has had a tremendous ministry to young men and women through athletics. The youth football program at Enon has played an instrumental role in lives of many young men and has alumni playing at all levels of college football and in the NFL. The programs maintain their core focus of reaching people for the cause of Christ.
Since his installation in 1994, Dr. Waller has led Enon through a period of tremendous spiritual and numerical growth. He is a gifted vocalist, revivalist, and lecturer who has released musical albums and authored books. He has preached to an audience of over 100,000 in South Korea and presented on religious theory at an Oxford roundtable. His wife, Dr. Ellyn Jo Waller is also his partner in ministry at Enon.
The church was founded in 1876 as the first African American church in the Germantown neighborhood of Philadelphia. Currently, Enon serves a congregation of over 15,000 members and the surrounding community with nearly 100 innovative ministries. The Church has used its Athletics ministry to bring the Gospel to families and children throughout the neighboring communities.
Under his leadership Enon grew beyond what the building on West Coulter Street could fully support, and the church built a new campus on 34 acres on Cheltenham Ave in East Mount Airy. This campus provides what Waller refers to as a ‘big backyard’ for the church to minister to youth and families from Northwest Philadelphia. In addition to football, Enon Athletics has youth programs for soccer, baseball, basketball cheerleading, track and field, and martial arts. The church still meets and ministers in Germantown as well.
As Dr. Waller earned his D.Min in Ministry to Marriage and Family from Palmer theological Seminary, he is an Eastern alum.
Dr. Waller will meet with the team and coaching staff frequently and will create a structure of mentorship that will lead to growth throughout the program.
