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Our Pastor, PJ Johnson, became burdened for the unchurched people of Scott County (people who haven't attended church in the past year). After reading an article from the Virginia Baptist Mission Board called Project 670, he discovered Scott County has a population of 24,000 with roughly 13,000 of those being unchurched. This means that two thirds of our friends, relatives, neighbors, and coworkers are unchurched and probably do not have a relationship with God, which greatly disturbed him. 

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Pastor PJ left the church he was pastoring at that time, to seek God wholeheartedly about this burden.  He read a book titled “Prepare for Rain” by Michael Catt, who was the pastor of Sherwood Baptist Church, Albany, GA, which is the church that produced the movies “Facing the Giants”, “Fireproof”, and “Courageous”.  It was then that Pastor PJ knew the next step had to be prayer.  He and his family organized prayer walks thru the 13 schools in Scott County and then thru the 18 churches in the Clinch Valley Baptist Association. Uplift Church is the product of three years of prayer throughout each community within our county.  Pastor PJ learned the importance of prayer, fasting, and seeking God.

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On Sunday June 24, 2012, PJ, his wife, Amanda, their family, along with five other families, held a church service in the basement of the Pastor's home, during which he shared the burden and vision that God had laid on his heart.  He gave them homework for the month of July, to seek God, asking Him if this was something they felt God wanted them to be a part of.  This small group assembled again on Aug 5th as a new work and started worshipping in the Pastor's home.  There were five families (10 people) who were all in on the vision of reaching people for Christ thru this new work.  

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They began by meeting for worship in the basement of the Pastor's home each week, after which they discussed the plan to organize the new church. It was during this time that the vision started becoming a reality. The name Uplift Church and the vision behind all we do was born. Even though we were meeting in a basement, the church grew. What started off with 5 families, quickly became 10 families. In January 2013 we had our first baptism in a trough in the basement of PJ and Amanda’s house. After that, It was like a rocket blasted off and the church grew by leaps and bounds. Knowing our mission was to reach people for God, we needed a larger place to meet and on March 31, 2013, we began meeting at Gate City High School. We soon outgrew that location and purchased the building we are currently in at 358 US Hwy 23 S, Weber City, VA (near the state line, in the former Colonial Downs building). 

 

Uplift is a contemporary, casual, friendly, welcoming, God-serving church with a simple mission: To Lead People To Love God & To Love Others. That’s what we are called to do and that's what we’re all about. ​

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