You could say I found Covenant Fellowship because of a blind date and a salon chair.
In May of 1999, I was introduced to my now husband, Michael, on a blind date. After dating for a while, Michael started talking about marriage. I told Michael if we were going to get married, we needed to find a church, so Michael and I started looking. We tried a few but none of them felt like home.
I remembered that six months prior, a lovely lady named Barb was in my chair for highlights at the salon where I worked. (I’m a cosmetologist by trade.) She talked about her church that was located somewhere on Route 322. I talked to Michael and told him about my conversation, and we decided that would be the next church that we visited.
Easter Sunday was coming up, and even before giving my life to Christ, Easter was an important holiday for me to go to church. At the time, we were living together in an apartment in West Chester, so we decided that on Easter morning, we would get in the car and drive around on 322 to look for Barb’s church. Our plan was to head out towards Downingtown. (If we had gone that direction, we would never have found Covenant Fellowship.) But to my surprise that Saturday before Easter, Barb was in my chair again for highlights! When I told Barb the story, she was NOT surprised at all! She said, “That’s all God!” Barb gave me a Come and See invitation card from the church.
We went to the Easter service that April in 2000 and sat up front behind Hobie Clark and his family. His kids were raising their hands worshiping the Lord and taking notes as the pastor was preaching. This captured my heart because my sons were not walking with the Lord. My husband is a musician so the music captured his heart, and mine too. Everyone was warm, friendly, and genuine. It was like we were looking for Covenant Fellowship Church all the while, and it felt like home!
When we came to Covenant Fellowship we were not Christians. We did everything backwards, deciding to jump right into Exploring Covenant Fellowship classes because we felt that we found our church home. By the time we got to our interview with Pastor Andy, clearly he knew we were not saved! He asked Michael and I if we would mind working with a pastor in training, Brian VanderWeide. There is more to this story but clearly the Holy Spirit was working!
In September of 2000, we started the Alpha course (now called Bridge) to learn more about the Christian faith, with the Everetts as our leaders. We went to Beta, a follow-up to Alpha, and met Bev and Steve Farley. Our every step was blessed by so many solid strong Christians! Then we started going to the Bittner Community Group. In January 2001 we were baptized in the same pool on a Sunday afternoon after church. Our faith was growing and we made plans to move apart and walk in purity toward marriage. All the while the Holy Spirit was working on us.
In November of 2001 we were married at Covenant Fellowship, with the help of the Holy Spirit, and LOTS of helping hands! Twenty two years later, we are still here and still being blessed by all the pastors and family members of Covenant Fellowship Church. Thank you LORD!
