Church receives 'gift from God'

Oct 24, 2011
By Chuck Flagg

Excerpt:
St. James, now building-less, rented space for worship at community centers in San Jose and Saratoga. They were resigned to spending years as a "portable church."

One day Father McNeil heard of a church building that might be available in Willow Glen. When he contacted the pastor of Christian Assembly, he discovered that it was indeed for sale. Although St. James had no building fund, they had the building appraised between $400,000 and 500,000. Christian Assembly wanted nearly twice this amount, so the idea was dropped.

This spring, Christian Assembly's pastor contacted McNeil again, mentioning that the congregation had made many improvements to the property and was still interested in selling. The price, however, was still too high.

In July, conversations began again. It was finally decided that St. James would purchase both the church and a nearby cottage (with kitchen and office/meeting space) for $900,000 with a 10-year zero percent mortgage - extremely generous terms.

Then astounding news came in August: Christian Assembly offered to sell both properties to St. James for just the $311,000 in their building fund. According to Fr. McNeil, "They believed that God wanted us to have these buildings ... The Holy Spirit was directing them. ... They did not want our ministry hampered by a mortgage." the rest