Before the sun rose on Faith Bible Fellowship Church in Manchester Township on Oct. 22, a Kinsley Construction crane was in place ready to get to work. By late afternoon, the aging tower on top of the sanctuary, with a crack and a lean, was replaced with a gleaming reminder of the congregation’s faith piercing the blue sky.
According to Helen Gemmill, a deacon with the church, the current church was built in 1974 on donated farmland. “It was deteriorated, it’s got a huge crack in it … it’s a foot out of center, it was unstable and we had to replace it,” she said as the crane cable was lashed to the tower.
The church started a capital fund, receiving donations from within and outside the congregation, for the replacement of the tower and quickly raised the $54,000 needed for the new 48-foot tower. “We wanted to make sure the money raised … was from people who wanted this as their legacy,” Gemmill added.
While the church was originally in the middle of farmland in 1974, housing has filled in around the church over the following decades and it’s a visible landmark Gemmill noted.