Published: August 26, 2024
Ex Metal Band Frontman, Church Pay Off Millions in Locals’ Medical Debt
By Movieguide® Contributor
A Tennessee church has paid off $8 million in locals’ medical debt after partnering with a national program.
The Altar Fellowship, a church in Johnson City, TN, started raising money for people who were struggling to pay off their medical debt.
“We heard about this program through our senior pastor, Pastor Mattie Montgomery,” Pastor David Morrison, who serves at the Altar Fellowship, told WJHL. “A business friend of his who loves the Lord just like we do called him and said that he had been dreaming about one day being able to forgive medical debt in his hometown of Florida. But he looked where they were, and that was not available, but where there was a lot of medical debt that needed to be forgiven was here in the Tri-Cities region.”
Montgomery, former frontman of Christian metal band For Today, now serves as a pastor at Altar Fellowship.
Morrison continued, “The story meant so much to our senior pastor, Pastor Mattie, because [he lost] his father to cancer at the young age of eight. And while he was in hospice care at home, a businessman from their town bought Christmas gifts for their entire family. And so that was an inspiration for him and is continuing to be an inspiration for all of us, that not only can we be a church that brings hope inside these four walls, but we are called to be the light and the hope outside of these four walls and bless our community.”
The church raised around $50,000 in one day, even unknowingly helping members of their own congregation.
Teen Carl Smith, who donated the “couple [of] dollars in my pocket” that he had, said he later found out that his dad’s medical debt had been paid off.
“It was just such a blessing to find that out,” he shared.
“We want to love not just the people at our church, but we want to love our neighbors,” Morrison said of the Altar Fellowship’s debt relief program. “And Jesus said in Matthew 10, He said freely, ‘you have received so freely give,’ and we believe that He paid our debt when we didn’t deserve it.”
He continued, “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. And what [a] relief of a burden. And to get that letter in the mail saying your debt is forgiven, you don’t owe anything else, and we love you. And that’s really our message. It’s like God loves you, we love you, you’re seen, and we believe in you. And we want to relieve this burden from you and your family.”
“This is why the Church exists to demonstrate the love of God!” Montgomery commented on an Instagram post about the donations.
The Altar Fellowship Church has helped pay off the debt of 3,921 families in Carter, Greene, Hancock, Hawkins, Johnson, Unicoi and Washington Counties.