New Church Begins Morning Worship
ONEONTA—River Street, Oneonta neighbors may have noticed that a new church began morning worship services earlier this month in their neighborhood. Members of the newly-forming Oneonta Reformed Presbyterian Church gathered together for their first Sunday morning worship service at 148 River Street on Sunday, March 3 to sing Psalms, read the Bible, pray, listen to gospel preaching, and enjoy one another’s company.
According to officials, this new group is a church-planting effort supported by the Walton Reformed Presbyterian Church. The Walton congregation has been hosting exploratory Sunday evening worship services at the Red Door Church in Oneonta in order to gauge interest from local residents who may wish to join the upcoming congregation. Soon after starting these evening worship services, a few local families and individuals started attending and eventually joined the Walton church as members, with their sights set on starting a new Oneonta Reformed congregation in the near future.
Passionate about the work of starting the new Oneonta church, Ryan Alsheimer, a recently-elected associate pastor of the Walton congregation, elaborated in a press release, “My family, along with the Walton congregation, has been praying about this moment for quite some time: when we would be able to begin worshiping together on Sunday mornings in the City of Oneonta. We had a fantastic start with our first worship service and we are all already very excited about our next gathering.”
When asked why Oneonta would be in need of a new church, Alsheimer explained, “The Reformed worship experience that our members and guests enjoy brings an additional option to Oneonta that it doesn’t currently have. Some of the most prominent differences that aren’t present in the other good churches in the area include…singing of the Psalms of the Bible in an acapella style, and an overall emphasis on historic, reformed, Biblical doctrine.”
For the time being, according to Alsheimer, the Oneonta Reformed Presbyterian Church plant will be worshiping together on the first and third Sunday mornings at 10 a.m. at 148 River Street in Oneonta. The group also hosts other Bible studies throughout the week for members and visitors, and hopes to implement a weekly worship schedule as more area residents join in. Interested community members can find updates on their website at OneontaReformed.org.