United Hope Celebrates 25 Years

United Hope Seventh-day Adventist Church, formerly the Irvington Seventh-day Adventist Church, the first Adventist church in Union, NJ, commemorated 25 years with a grand reopening celebration!  The renovation and expansion project began in 2020, hoping to bring new voices and services to the Union area.  Now, three years later, that plan has come to fruition!

Under the pastoral leadership of Dr. Richard James Sr., United Hope held a two-day celebration under the theme “Building Together."  Dr. James with invited city and state officials, pastors, elders, and officers, marked the occasion with prayer, praise, and a charge to fully submit to God.  For truly, "Unless the Lord builds the house, its builders labor in vain…many are the plans in the mind of a man.  However, it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand.”

While the church building was under renovation, members went from worshipping online, during the height of the pandemic, to worshipping in the building’s fellowship hall.  Now, with a new sanctuary, members are excited to see one another and to fill the seats with new friends from the community.

What started in 1998 as a company of nine seeking to plant a church in an unreached area, is now an established body of over two hundred members.  While locations have changed, faces differed, and buildings transformed, the goal has remained the same — to bring the love of God to the children of God.