Furnace for The Church At Bear Lake

My name is Bob Senz. I am a bivocational church planter (that means I work a full time job also) of the Church At Bear Lake. 


On November 23rd, as we went to turn on the heat at The Church at Bear Lake, it started as normal and we went about our business of getting ready for service a few hours later.  We left to come home and finish a few things while the church building warmed up to temperature and when we came back the church was filled with smoke and a bunch of black soot.  It was cold but we were going to continue with the service when I noticed that there was a black film all over everything.  We ended up cancelling the service and did not clean anything up that day because I figured that the Heating Repairman would need to restart it.

The next day the Heating Repair service came and began to investigate (and run the furnace more).  After his investigation the bad news was delivered that the heat exchanger was was cracked and bad and that it had damaged the fuel injector. 

They red-tagged the furnace and have told us that we need a new one.  Initial estimates are $4,000.00 and they want to change it to a propane furnace vs. the current fuel oil system.

We are a small rural church with no running water (we have an electric toilet that incinerates the waste, it's always an adventure) and a very low budget.  I do not take any sort of salary from the church.

If you'd care to learn more about the Bear Lake community and the ministry here please contact me at [email redacted].  I'd prefer not to publicly post pictures of our community that might be embarassing to my friends and neighbors here, but please know that it is a rural and poor community.

You can help us out in exactly 3 ways.

1) Pray for us. Pray for the ministry here. I've seen some great and amazing movements of God, and we've seen the corresponding attacks on families by the enemy.

2) Donate - Please donate as much as you feel led to.  Any little bit helps.  Help us get the heat back on!

3) Pass this on to your friends... maybe someone who doesn't even know us is interested in chuch planting and reaching rural America!


God bless you and I hope you have a warm and merry Christmas!

Pastor Bob Senz