A new church in Brewer is helping the 223-year-old First Congregational Church, United Church of Christ, survive and remain in its historic building next to City Hall.
The couple leading the new congregation, Timothy and Cindy Varney, have been in Maine less than a year but have attracted about 30 worshippers to Illuminate Church so far. Before moving into the Congregational church’s basement, services were held at a Brewer motel with small groups meeting in homes.
The rent Illuminate pays will allow the Congregational church to continue worshiping in the building and to pay for much-needed renovations, according to Don Hei, moderator and treasurer.
“We are delighted to see this building continue to be used for the service of God,” he said.
Illuminate Church will sponsor an Easter egg hunt Saturday afternoon and hold its first service at 35 Church St. at 1 p.m. Sunday.
Although the Varneys and their children, ages 12 and 10, moved to Glenburn in May, the couple has been planning to found and praying to bring an Assemblies of God church to Brewer for about five years.
The denomination has two churches in Bangor — House 24:7 at the Bangor Mall and First Assembly of God Church on Finson Road.
When Timothy Varney, 38, retired last year after serving 20 years in the U.S. Air Force, the couple put those plans and prayers into action.
“Northern New England has fewer regular churchgoers than any other part of the United States,” said Cindy Varney, 39. “We send missionaries overseas to countries with more Christians than we have here.”
Pew Research Center estimated in 2019 that about 30 percent of the U.S. population were religiously unaffiliated. That number is projected to grow to between 34 and 52 percent of the population by 2070.
In 2014, 34 percent of Mainers surveyed by Pew said that religion was very important in their lives, but just 22 percent said they went to services once a week. And 47 percent of Maine residents said they seldom or never went to services.
The only state with a higher number of non-worshippers was neighboring New Hampshire at 51 percent.
Timothy Varney was one of those Mainers who was in church every Sunday because his dad was the pastor at Berwick Full Gospel Church. He decided he wanted to be a minister when he was 8 or 9 years old.
At the time, he would break out into a rash when he ate dairy products. Varney said a healing service at his father’s church cured him.
“We had a guest speaker at church,” Varney said Thursday. “I got prayed for and never had that rash again.”
By the time he turned 18, Timothy Varney had seen enough of church politics to dissuade him from becoming a minister. Instead, he joined the U.S. Air Force. But as retirement loomed, he said God reminded him of his childhood dream.
In 2018, the couple visited Maine looking for a retirement home. They stopped in at the denominational office in Portland and were told: “We’ve been praying for church planters” – people who start new churches.
“We figured that’s not us,” Cindy Varney said.
But in 2020 they started the process to become church planters and started praying for a suitable building.
While the couple was figuring out how to build a congregation from scratch, the First Congregational Church in Brewer, founded in 1800, was struggling to keep its doors open, with most worshippers twice the age of the Varneys.
Five years ago, the church listed the building for sale but received no serious offers, according to Hei, who has attended the church for 23 years. Three years ago, the congregation decided to go from a full-time to a part-time pastor and get the building in shape for renters.
The first renter was a registered nurse who uses some space in the building to train caregivers who must be licensed by the state, he said.
Illuminate Church will be the second.
“The rent is sufficient to contribute some to our bottom line and to cover additional expenses for utilities,” Hei said.
With the Congregational church worshiping at 9:30 a.m. and Illuminate holding services at 1 p.m., the two congregations won’t be vying for parking spots in the small municipal lot across from City Hall.
The Varneys said they are happy to be set up permanently in the church basement and to not have to set up and break down chairs and a sound system every week.
Congregational church’s congregants unanimously vote to rent to Illuminate Church, according to Joan Hie, a church trustee and Don Hei’s wife.
“We are very different congregations, but we both serve the same God,” she said.
Timothy Varney, a history buff, is thrilled to be conducting services in the building where one of his heroes, Civil War Brig. Gen. Joshua L. Chamberlain, worshiped. The church also was part of a network of New England churches in the Underground Railroad, which helped people with food and other necessities as they escaped enslavement in the South.
