The church took a collection and raised $50,000 in one day. Members of The Altar Fellowship knew they were helping countless families in the surrounding counties. But they didn’t know members of their own congregation would also benefit.
Carl Smith, a teenage member of the church, attended the church on his own. He wanted to share his new faith with his family. Smith’s father had significant health issues for years. “He had some medical bills that we were struggling to pay off,” shared Smith.
“And then one day, his dad called him in and said, ‘Hey, that church you go to is called The Altar, right?’ And he said, ‘Yeah?’ And the dad said, ‘Your church just paid off all my medical bills,'” Montgomery told The Christian Post of Smith’s conversation with his dad. “And [the dad] was just really confounded by that. He thought, ‘Why did they do this?’ And his son got the opportunity to share the gospel with his father because of the giving of the church.”
“It was such a blessing to find that out,” said Smith. He also shared that he contributed to the church’s collection, not knowing that his own family would benefit. “I only had a couple of dollars in my pocket, but I knew that everything counted,” he said. “So, I gave the most I could.”
“This is just a beautiful example of what Jesus did for all of us—by just paying the debt for people that many will never meet,” said Morrison. “What a relief of a burden to get that letter in the mail saying, ‘Your debt is forgiven. You don’t owe anything else. And, we love you.'”
“We want extravagant generosity to be one of the things that the church is known for,” Montgomery told The Christian Post. “And I don’t just mean our church, The Altar Fellowship; I mean the church nationally and internationally.”
“I want people to know that, in a moment of crisis, the place they need to get to is to be with a group of people who follow Jesus,” he continued. “They need to get into a church.”
