Trending
The genesis of City Alliance Church springs from a group of people gathered for prayer and Bible study in someone's home. Since then, with that foundation, the church has grown and moved to new spaces to accommodate that growth and through prayer and wise stewardship, the church recently celebrated paying off the mortgage at their current location at the corner of West Fourth and Elmira streets.
It was a celebration worthy of the occasion as church members entered the sanctuary of the church through balloon arches, unaware of what was to come. It had been kept a secret except for a few people in leadership-the church was now debt free. Being debt free isn't just about money, it's about the ability to expand the outreach of the church, something City Alliance has been doing since the beginning, always grounded in prayer.
"Right now, I don't want to share anything too much because we're still kind of praying through some things," said Pastor Nithin Thompson when asked what comes next.
"I think our heart has always been what can we do to make the city better. Our mission is to join with Christ to transform Williamsport with the Gospel for the glory of God, the good and the city. So, as we're analyzing just what the needs are and where we are as a church in this season of our church's life, where can we add the most value? We're just praying about what that looks like," he said.
One thing they've already decided is that they want to do more meal packing in the winter. They have also talked about giving the amount they would have spent on a mortgage payment to some of their ministry partners.
"Those are all things that we are now discussing as a board-like what does generosity look like in this new season," he said.
During the Sunday service, former member Robert Montgomery, who joined the fledgling church in 2013 and saw it move from Stevens Primary School, where it had grown to 20 to 25 people, to the old YMCA on Fourth Street. Then City Alliance moved again and held their times of worship at the Alabaster Coffee Shop in the center of the city.
"When we moved to Alabaster Coffee Shop, things really took off. We ended up with several services, including a four o'clock afternoon service that mainly the college kids attended, but as you would guess, we started outgrowing that space," Montgomery said.
"Now, at the time, the church was pretty young. We didn't have a lot of financial backing at the time, and we knew that it was going to probably be difficult for us to actually move and purchase a place. So we were hoping that we could just find another lease/rental place that had a bigger space," he said.
Especially difficult with utilizing a multi-use space was the fact that all the equipment for the music ministry had to be torn down each week after the services because it was in a business which opened Monday. Also the materials and equipment for the children's ministry had to be taken down and stored until the next Sunday.
"Nothing was really coming to mind. We knew again that we probably couldn't afford to buy something new," Montgomery said.
At that time, the pastor at First Baptist Church contacted Spencer Sweeting, who was the pastor at City Alliance, to see if they would be interested in looking at that church. The congregation at First Baptist was no longer able to afford the maintenance and the upkeep, and they wanted to sell the church.
They had a developer who was interested in buying the building and turning it into apartments and there was one catch, they had already told the developer that they were going to vote on their offer within a couple of days. If City Alliance was interested, they knew that if they delayed the church would be gone.
"So we got the team together of the pastor, a couple elders, and the trustees. We went over there and had a really nice tour of the church," Montgomery said.
He said that it became obvious that the pastor of First Baptist really wanted the building to remain a church.
"They didn't want a developer to come in and make an apartment out of this beautiful church building. So we knew that God was in this. He was in the middle of all this, and one of the questions we had was, "This is God's time, and He brought us together. How can we afford the mortgage on such a beautiful, large building like that," he said.
"We prayed about that. We had a meeting among ourselves, and we kind of came up with the range of the mortgages that we thought we could afford, and then we met with the First Baptist Leadership Team, and they gave us what they thought their mortgage could be. They gave us a really good discount because they really wanted this to stay in the hands of another church and not go to the developer. So we kind of shook hands. We came up with an agreement there, and we were both really satisfied that God brought us together just at the right time to make all these things happen," Montgomery said.
The building was old and not without its issues. Sewer lines, plumbing, heating all added up to expenses that made it difficult to put together a budget to be able to afford to run the church, even though they had gotten a really good deal on the price.
About that time, Montgomery shared, there was an older man who had been one of the original members, whose health was failing and he knew that he probably would pass away fairly soon. He knew that they were purchasing the new building so he spoke with Sweeting and said that he really wanted to give a gift to the church-that God was calling him to do that and he could see how God was already moving in City Alliance.
"He passed, and we received his gift, and we were all blown away by how much it was. Nobody could have predicted that. That actually gave us stability financially for several years, and allowed the church time to work out their budget and kind of get our feet on the ground after inheriting such a beautiful complex," he said.
"That gave us plenty of room where we didn't have to tear down and build up every Sunday with all of our equipment. So once again, God kind of showed up, and these were things that we didn't know what we were doing back then, and yet God kind of held our hand and led us along the way, and you can see where we're going today," Montgomery said.
Thompson pointed out that if it weren't for that decision 11 years ago the building where they worship today would be apartments.
"Because of this faithful remnant that was in this church that said no, we want this to continue to be a place where the gospel of Jesus Christ is preached, where believers are worshiping, where the next generation is being raised up to love God, love others, and serve the world as a church-our founders-said we're going to take a risk," Thompson said.
Michael Kolb, who had served as treasurer at the time the sale of the church was going through, spoke about the years when the church stepped out in faith, trusting that God would supply what was needed, and how they were blessed by taking that risk.
"One of the things that first attracted me to this church was the fact that they were faithful and they weren't just faithful in words," Kolb said.
"One of the four pillars of when we originally started City Alliance was taking risk...faith by definition requires risk. If you don't take risks, it's a calculated decision. It's a human decision. It's not faithful," he said.
Because of that the church proceeded with the purchase of the church, not knowing where the money was going to come from.
What they didn't realize is that the deed for the church required all heirs of Peter Herdic to sign off before the sale would be final. That process ended up taking three years to complete and during that time, the church doubled in size again and was able to spend the entire time in their new facility rent free.
"By the time the church was actually ready to sell for us, because we faithfully stepped into this, God was faithful and had gotten our church to the point where we could start to afford this," Kolb said.
They offered space for free to non-profit organizations and also agreed to pay their utilities because they felt because they were there rent-free they wanted to do the same for the community and they felt that was what God wanted them to do.
"In addition, during those three years, we fixed a leaky roof-it was bad. We put a ramp on so people could come into the church that were not able to walk up the steps. We started to fix the windows, the stonework and all the other things that God allowed us to do because we stepped out in faith," Kolb said.
There were other times Kolb shared that the church took that risk and sought God's provision.
"We had to step out in faith knowing that God was going to turn around and deliver with that. And I believe that risk taking, that stepping out in faith will continue to be rewarded by God, not always monetarily, but definitely in faithfulness to what he wants," Kolb said.