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The Well Church — renovating people’s lives

By Pat Crossley 8 min read

First they started worshipping in a barn on their property, then they moved to holding services at the YWCA, then to a church on Grier Street in Williamsport and now, Pastors Shawn and Stacey Noltee have found a home for The Well Church in Montoursville in the building that was home to the Episcopal Church on Loyalsock Avenue.

They are currently in the process of modernizing the building and social hall, adding air conditioning and updating it with new paint and flooring, but the historical charm is still there, welcoming parishioners and drawing them in to worship.

Technically, The Well is a non-denominational church, although the Noltee's do not like that designation. It is part of a network of independent churches called Kingdom Reign International, based in the Rochester, Buffalo and Syracuse area. Members of the network, which they described as a decent size, get together for conferences and support each other.

"We're part of a network of churches.They're actually quite diverse: black churches, white churches, maybe more left-leaning churches, more right-leaning churches. But they're all people who have strong relationships with each other," said Stacey.

"We've known these people for many years, and it's nice because we had a season where we lost five people from cancer in a year's time, and they would come here and check on us. They prayed for us regularly," she said.

The journey that the Noltee's took to found The Well Church is also different from the traditional route that pastors take.

"We got tricked," Shawn shared.

"We were married with kids and had our jobs and living our lives," he said.

Stacey interjected that they had many people who had prayed for them over the years and they had wanted the Noltee's to consider full-time ministry. Her background is in journalism and she had worked at the library for years, whereas Shawn was more in sales.

"We just kept getting pressed by God to start a church," she said.

Shawn continued, "There was a point, I think it was 2011 or something like that, where there was a significant time of prayer at the end of the church service in the church we were going to. God got a hold of both of our hearts and basically just said, "Hey, I want you to move on," Shawn said.

"We thought we were moving on to pastor an established church, and that didn't seem to work out. And several months later, we were challenged by someone we knew-is God calling you to pastor a church? And we felt like He was and he said, "Well, start your own." And we had no intention of doing that. So that's the 'we got tricked into it' sort of part of the story," he said.

Stacey admitted that in some ways she and Shawn feel like lay pastors because they didn't go through typical channels to start a church.

"We tried to...we did try. The doors just seemed to shut," she said.

"We tried to do school. Tried to go that route, but we did this, and miracle after miracle has happened. We've run the church entirely out of debt from day one. We've not had any debt with the church. God has provided supernaturally. He's allowed us to know each step when we think, 'Are we doing what we're supposed to?' He has met us in miraculous ways," she said.

"So here we are. We're very average, normal people. We have a lot of flaws and God still uses us," she said.

"We know we're doing what we're supposed to be doing. We wouldn't change it. We're doing what we're called to do," Shawn added.

The Noltee's have nothing but praise for the congregation which now totals around 50.

"We're literally like a family. We've all been together for a long time. We've been to a few churches in our lives, but we've never really been a part of a group that's this close and tight knit," Shawn said.

That closeness and a respect for each other's views even if they differ is what Stacey believes sets The Well apart.

"Like Scripture says, that you should be known for your love for one another. We have a pretty diverse (group). We have people who are far one side politically, far another side politically. We have a congregation who's diverse as well as far as race. During the Me Too movement or COVID, where people in different pockets had different views. Our people would come in regularly and say this is not a Black church, this is not a white church, this is not a Democrat church or Republican church.

"We are God's church, and it took time, but we have gotten to know each other, and people really respect each other's perspectives here. And I don't see that in other people who tend to cluster towards what makes them comfortable. I would say that we seek discomfort with one another in order to establish patterns of love," Stacey said.

"You're not going to come here and be shunned because of your political perspective, or because of your race...and people will be honest. We have people who disagree here. We've taught people how to disagree with one another in a very loving and respectful fashion. To have unity and diversity, not in conformity. I think that's very important to us that people can think for themselves and still be respected," she added.

The couple's style of teaching also sets them apart from the traditional sermon type of format.

"We usually just have a table and two chairs up front and she and I will primarily teach, but it leaves an open forum for people to ask questions. We pass the mic around and they add to what's being talked about and add their perspective," Shawn said.

"I think it's more closely aligned with how the original church was. They would meet house to house and they would talk through scripture and things like that," he added.

Stacey shared that they were part of the oversight team at the Kingdom Reign organization and have preached in several of the churches in that group. The more that people have seen their style of preaching, including having women as part of the tag team style they utilize, many of those churches have adopted that style.

"It infiltrated that organization. So now we see them doing it a lot more," she said.

"We also try to empower women here. There's a few others besides me-this coming Sunday, one of our women will be preaching. But we try to have representation on the platform of women, of Black people-a representation of what is here in this area, so that young people see themselves represented from a leadership perspective.That's very important to us," she added.

Stacey admitted that they have received "flak" over allowing women to preach, but that they try not to take it personally and have learned to "love people where they are.

"I think God can defend Himself too. He doesn't need a bunch of debaters arguing about what's right," Shawn said.

"It doesn't help anybody and it doesn't win people over," added Stacey.

"So we try to just present something different in a loving way, and I'm not saying we always do that successfully, but just trying to present it in a loving way so that people can be open to it.

The Noltee's stressed that they have developed their worship model after studying scripture for years.

"We're not perfect, obviously, but we are trying to be as biblically accurate as we can. And in having women preach, and in having a greater representation of race and things like that, we fully believe that that's the heart of God. That's the nature of God. That's what's on display," Shawn said.

Renovating the new building is really part of the area of expertise and they have worked on other properties so as Stacey said, "it is in our wheelhouse to renovate," but she's quick to add, "We're so excited...but our most important thing is that lives would be renovated. The building is really secondary to people's lives. Like we truly want people to encounter Jesus in a way that sets them free and makes them feel loved and affirmed, and so we know we're being highlighted because of the building, but we want to be highlighted because the Lord changes lives."

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