A growing alliance

Saratoga Alliance Church hold goundbreaking on April 18

On a sunny, albeit breezy, day on April 18, members of the Saratoga Alliance Church gathered to observe the most recent groundbreaking for the growing congregation.

While the event itself was important as it signaled growth, its connection to the church's origins were just as important.

In 1978, Paul Stumbo, the Rocky Mountain District Superintent of the Christian and Missionary Alliance, walked into Mom's Kitchen in Saratoga looking for a group of people he had been told were interested in starting a church.

Upon entering the restaurant, Stumbo couldn't find anybody he immediately identified as "church people". A return to his car, and a prayer, found him back inside taking a closer look where he found a group of people who, though sporting long hair and tattoos, had a bible in the middle of their table.

A year prior, Jerry Rayl was speaking with his father, Wally, who suggested starting an Alliance church in Saratoga. What would eventually become the Saratoga Alliance Church, and would have Wally Rayl as its first pastor, had a long road to fruition. While Stumbo had met with the founding members of the church-Jeff, Patti and Mitch Rayl, Tim and Kim Madigan, and Jim and Kathy Wells-in 1978 it wouldn't be until 1983 that there would be a groundbreaking of the new church.

It would take another five years before a service was held in the basement of the church and it wouldn't be until 1996 that a service would be held upstairs. In 2003, the church purchased a parsonage for the clergy that is still used to this day.

On April 18, 2021 that growth continued with a prayer from Pastor Vince Vannett, grandson of Stumbo, and Ryan Follum, great-grandson of Wally Rayl. Vannett is the most recent person to serve as pastor of the Alliance church, a position previously held by Follum's grandfather, Joe Gaspari, when the congregation was in need.

Following the prayer from Vannett, who prayed over the church, and Follum, who prayed for the new building, the groundbreaking began. Using a backhoe from Custom Builders, Garet Irvine and his son, Owen, moved the first buckets of dirt in what would be the location for the new structure.

 

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