3:16 Church celebrates 10 years
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Ten years after a small group of people began meeting together to worship in rented space at the Holiday Inn, 3:16 Church has found a permanent home and is growing in their commitment to serve the Lord and the local community.
"We started the church on July 4, and when we started it was just three families. That's probably like six people total that actually invested the time to grow to build a church," said Sal Minella, who serves as pastor of 3:16 Church, 801 Washington Blvd.
"It was a church that wanted to be more missional-based than just being a Sunday service. We wanted to be part of the community. We wanted to make sure that people were not just coming on Sunday morning for something to do, but to really grow deep in their faith," he said.
After spending about three years in their rented space at the hotel, the church decided to partner with Redeemer Lutheran Church in the city's East End. They moved their services to Saturday evenings to accommodate their host church's Sunday worship times.
They remained there for two years, before renting space at the movie theater which was located adjacent to the former Lycoming Mall in 2015.
"It's been a long journey," Minella said.
During that journey, the church had been searching to find a permanent home, but finances and finding a suitable building for their needs were problems.
While they were situated at the theater, the church started to grow, but the cost of renting the space was an issue.
"Financially it wasn't something that we wanted to sustain, just because it was a lot of money. It was more than we wanted to spend.Every penny that we've had we've invested in growing the congregation and building the church," he said.
Then with the donation for a down payment, 3:16 Church in 2019 moved into their new location, the former East End Baptist Church.
"That building needed some love and care," Minella admitted, adding, "The person who gave us the down payment for the loan was a blessing."
The move was providential, because COVID struck and if they had been in their former location at the theater, all worship would have stopped. The move also brought them into the community they were hoping to serve.
One of the first acts of service was to help maintain the Williamsport Cemetery property on Washington Boulevard, which had become grown up with high grass.
"We made sure that the place was nice, beautiful, respecting those who had passed on and really just being communal in just doing that part of it," Minella said.
For about a year, the group from the church would come on Sunday, bring their mowers, doughnuts and coffee, to beautify the cemetery.
"Nobody gave us anything to do that financially. We just had the love of the community to join us on that. We wanted people to see their church in action making the place in the community better," he said.
That was the church's first mission.
Since then they have worked with the American Rescue Workers at some of their events and have also partnered with another church in wrapping and delivering gifts to children at Christmas.
Since moving to their current site, they have held soup sales and held meals.
"It was really not just for the sake of doing that part of it, it was fore to get the community to know where we were at and to talk to people and let them know there's a church there. We set up a praying station and we set up a place where they could get Bibles for free," Minella said.
The church has also grown in numbers since the move, with people the Lord has brought who are looking "not just for a place to just worship," but those who "are looking to grow deeper," Minella said.
"I feel like that's what we offer in our church -- just biblical-based teachings. We do life groups that really sustain the growth of believers and we started seeing really, really good fruit from that and people just holding on to the faith instead of walking away," he said.
Minella stressed that 3:16 Church is a church that welcomes everybody.
"We pretty much hold to the fact that the church is a place for the sick and not the healthy. People don't have to come perfect-they need to come broken and let the Lord restore them. I feel like we're a church that really leans into those who are willing to put themselves before the Lord and humble themselves," he said.
"It's okay to be broken. We don't judge you for your past. We don't judge you for your current circumstances or what you're going through. We actually work with you through that. I think that's different from some other churches. Our goal is to make sure that we're holding you accountable, but you're growing at the same time. You can still show up and know the Lord. I know it's hard for people to walk through church doors immediately, and our doors are always open and there's no judgment from us. We let the Lord just work in their hearts and deal with them the way he needs to," he said.
Minella shared that the church's distinctive name comes from various 3:16 passages in scripture throughout the Bible and not just the familiar John 3:16. Each reveals a core value of the church -- John 3:16, love; 2 Timothy 3:16, wisdom; 1 Corinthians 3:16, holiness; Colossians 3:16, worship; and Revelation 3:16, mission.
Services at 3:16 Church are at 10 a.m. Sundays with a Life Group meeting at 8:30 a.m. prior to worship. The church is non-denominational and has a contemporary worship service.
For more information about the services, either visit the church's website or phone them at 570-360-9346.
"I just want to say that I'm proud of the people in the church because you know, moving from building to building, setting up and tearing down every morning for 10 years is a lot of work. And I'm just so thankful that we have a church willing to put in the hard work for other people," Minella said.