ADAMS TWP — A “Gideon moment” and a Bible verse, as well as outpouring of generosity, are credited with Old Union Presbyterian Church, 200 Union Church Road, retiring a 20-year mortgage in nine years.

The church will have a mortgage-burning party Sunday to celebrate.

Pastor Peter de Vries, said the event will include an open house worship service from 11 a.m. to noon designed for people who haven't been to church for a long time or who have never attended. Members of the church team that took a mission trip to Texas this summer will speak.

“At noon we will have the mortgage-burning ceremony in the pavilion, weather permitting,” said de Vries.

“We will have a pig roast including hamburgers and hot dogs for those who don't like pork and McElhanny corn from church member John McElhanny,” he said.

“The fellowship hall will be set up for volleyball, there will be door prizes and we will be handing out bookmarks,” said de Vries

The event was a long time coming, said de Vries.

“I've been here for 25 years, and we were talking about the addition then,” he said. “In 2002, we got serious about it and made plans.”

“In 2008, we were ready to start,” he said. The $750,000 project to build an addition to the old church — including offices, a lobby and a general purpose room — was initially going to be financed with $450,000 in church funds and a $300,000 loan.

De Vries said, “A lot of people were nervous about taking on that much debt. And a lot of commercial banks were reluctant to lend to a church because they don't want to be known as the guy who foreclosed on a church.”

Fortunately, the church was able to get a loan from the Presbyterian Investment Loan Program, a nonprofit corporation of Presbyterian Church (USA) created to provide low-cost loans to congregations.

“We broke ground in October 2008” he said, just in time for the bottom to fall out of the stock market in the Great Recession of 2008. Old Union's investments lost $150,000 in value from October to December.

“As we began building, a third of our money vanished. We had a shell of a building,” he said.

The congregation was faced with a choice of borrowing another $150,000 from the Presbyterian group or take a chance of the building shell deteriorating if the church tried to raise more money without more loans.

De Vries said, “It was our Gideon moment. God raised up Gideon to raise an army.” A Gideon moment is when God seems to make the very thing he's called you to do increasingly impossible.

Old Union rose to its Gideon moment, committing to taking the extra $150,000 from the Presbyterian Investment and Loan Group.

“No one was happy with it, but we just had to go on with it,” said de Vries.

To pay off the mortgage, the church had to make monthly payments of $3,000, but the church committed itself to making extra payments to reduce the principal.

De Vries said the help of “generous members of the church, friends of the church and we did a lot of fundraising made the extra payments possible.

“We did garage sales, apple dumplings for the Mars Apple Fest. The soup suppers were our biggest moneymaker. We had ladies' teas and Christmas cookie sales,” de Vries said.

Ralph Jockel Sr., a member of the Old Union building committee, said, “To me it was just amazing. I can't figure out where it (the money) is coming from.

“My wife and I were talking. The congregation is mostly farmers and down-to-earth people. Maybe they are getting money from gas wells. I don't know where it is coming from but it sure came,” said Jockel.

“Our mission is to spread the Gospel into the community,” de Vries said. “A lot of people have said they were able to feel the presence of God when they came into the building.”

He credits this to what he called an one-in-a-million-and-a-half chance that occurred among the 190-member congregation.

De Vries said, “About three or four years ago, the church had fallen into the doldrums. Things were happening, but there was no energy.”

Congregation members were challenged to share a Bible verse, story or character that exemplified the church. Out of the responses, five Bible verses were chosen, and the congregation divided into five discussion groups led by church elders to decide which verse summed up the mission of the church.

De Vries said all of the groups and a sixth earlier practice group, picked the same verse: 1 Thessalonians 5:11, “Encourage one another and build each other up.”

“Instantly the energy level, activity and enthusiasm increased,” he said.

Fundraising was so enthusiastic that the final mortgage payment was made in May and there was money remaining that could be used for other church projects, because the church set aside a six-month cushion in case fundraising faltered. It never did, said de Vries.