New church to begin holding services in St. Regis in February

Summer Crosby

Beginning February 6, New Day Fellowship-St. Regis will begin holding worship services following the student ministry. The church, which will meet in the St. Regis Community Center, will initially serve as a missions church as an extension under New Day Fellowship-Haugen, which was originally called West Valley Chapel, but was re-launched back on August 2, 2009.

Dr. Alan Damron, who pastors the churches and his wife, Sarah, moved into Havre, Mt., after he graduated from a seminary down in Fort Worth, Tx., and served as a staff evangelist traveling all over the state doing revivals, retreats and working with the youth. Eventually, they moved back down south and then begin work with a missions group, Thirst No More, where they traveled overseas into underdeveloped countries to build water wells.

“We were with them a couple of years and we just felt like, you know we needed to get back to a preaching ministry,” Alan said. “We looked at each other and said Montana really never had gotten out of our hearts, and so, I, we started our own organization New Day Network Ministry, a nonprofit back in April 2009. From there, we built a base of support and initially our decision was to go back to Montana and preach wherever, and help wherever we can.”

He said that after meeting with Southern Baptist Leadership in Billings, the pair preached in several little churches throughout the state in June and July of 2009 and then they received a call from interim pastor, Andrew Goodwin, who was in Haugen. Goodwin asked the couple to come down not only to preach, but to come and stay.

“They got to a point where they wanted to start over,” Damron said. “They were down to just a handful of folks. They had never had a full time guy that lived there so that was very important. So here we are, this is our heart and this is their heart. We get together and if we’re going to do this, let’s just start over, fresh. Therefore New Day Fellowship-Haugen was birthed.”

The church in Haugen was averaging a core group of eight to nine students in Haugen who were originally from the St. Regis Area. As time went on, Damron said it became obvious that they should bring the church to the students. So, toward the middle of September, they began to hold a student ministry, LIGHT, in the community center in St. Regis.

“We started with the idea of let’s just have bible study,” he said. “We’ll start a youth group ministry in St. Regis. Then we thought, we’ll let’s just a start a church in St. Regis so this way we’re able to minister to the community as well. And so in February were officially going to start the church service.”

On February 6, the evening will began at 5 p.m. with the student ministry and then worship service will be held from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. The connection, he says, between the communities of Saltese, Haugen, DeBorgia, Henderson and St. Regis is that all of the kids travel to St. Regis to go to school. He said their eventual plans will to be to acquire a second building in St. Regis down the road. He commented that the people within the communities that he’s talked with have been very friendly, helpful and accepting. Damron explained that one of the biggest goals of both of the churches is to build relationships and to be a part of the community.

“We want the community to know that we are here to help the community,” Damron said. “We want to do some community things; we want to be a part of the community. Whether it’s painting a room, repairing a roof or providing wood so a person can heat his or her home, that’s what we want to be able to do. It’s just going to take us a while to be able to do that. We’re tickled to death that we’re starting, we’re growing.”

Another important goal of the churches is to spread what they believe is the best news ever.

“Our job is to deliver what we believe is the best news ever,” he said. “And we can’t make people pick it up and read it, or believe it. We don’t want to be overbearing, in your face, we’re just trying to convince both communities, all of these communities that the Christ we know cares about them in every area of their life. The last thing we want to promote is that we think that we’re better than everybody because that’s certainly not the point. We just think that the message, the gospel, is the answer.”

The pair said that many denominations are represented in their church, although they are affiliated with Glacier Southern Baptist Association and the Montana Southern Baptist Convention. Damron stresses, however, that while they are not ashamed of who they are that their first emphasis lies on something much more.

“The issue for us is has there been a time in your life when you met and received Jesus Christ as your lord and your savior, let’s start there,” Damron said. “Let’s start with your personal relationship with Christ and then we’ll talk churches down the road. That’s really a core of what we’re trying to do.”