City Church

Everyone is invited to City Church's first big event at its new property "St. Anthony's -- A City Church" for "The Picnic in the Parking Lot" starting at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 4.

It's located at 122 Liberty St. in Batavia. There will be food, live music, kids' activities and more.

"We've really pulled out all the stops on this one," says Pastor Marty Macdonald in a Facebook message about the event. "I'm excited about it, about the people who will be here, the music. ... We have enough food to feed half the city...Let's get to know one another."

In another mesaage, aimed at dispelling "myths" that apparently have sprung up about City Church's plans for St. Anthony, the pastor says the beautiful, historic wooden pews inside the sanctuary are staying put, so too are the finely crafted stained-glass windows, which add "architectural splendor" to the whole place. And the existing church on Main Street Downtown will remain open. A third City Church Sunday service, to be held at St. Anthony's, will be added at some point, time to be announced.

City Church closed escrow on the former Roman Catholic parish and school this spring.

City Church is expanding, but it's not moving. The popular Downtown evangelical church recently closed escrow on its purchase of the St. Anthony's Roman Catholic Church on Liberty Street on the city's Southside, which was owned by the Diocese of Buffalo.

The purchase also includes St. Anthony’s School, with a full gymnasium, a full kitchen and adjoining dining area, the rectory and a house.

But it's keeping the old movie Mancuso Theater that is now City Church, as well as its meeting facility off Center Street called The Generation Center. 

"We're 100-percent owners -- signed, sealed and delivered. We're very thankful for the property," said City Church Pastor Marty Macdonald this afternoon. "We're excited about the future. We felt this was a God-honoring opportunity."

"We're very interested in the gymnasium, and in helping preserve the heritage of the building," Macdonald said.

There are repairs to be done and plans for things to come, but the pastor said those are not yet finalized. But the name will remain the same, he said.

Meanwhile, City Church is planning a blockbuster block party this summer.

"We love being Downtown, on Main Street in Batavia," he said. "That is our home and will always be our home. We want to continue to help and brighten the city."

St. Anthony's Church closed more than three years ago. The school closed in 2006.

(Kenny Petterson)

Press release:

Kenny Petterson, pictured above, is one of several musicians to entertain at this year’s Musical Memories, the sixth annual event to benefit Crossroads House. It will begin at 7 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 3, at City Church, 210 E. Main St., Batavia. Rochester's The Hit Men Brass Band, shown below, just came off winning their DCA World Ensemble championship and are going to be there to show us just what it took to win their fifth world title.

When it comes to tooting his own horn, Kenny Petterson is still at it. He picked up the trumpet in fifth grade and, at 83, regularly practices and performs with musical groups. A resident of Penn Yan visiting family in Florida, he plans to travel north this week to join St. Joseph’s Reunion Brass Ensemble. The Ensemble is part of Saturday's lineup.

“I have been in the drum corps all my life. Music to me is everything. I don’t know what I’d do without it,” Petterson said in a recent interview by phone from Florida. “When you have something like this, it’s important to do. Crossroads is something the people all volunteer to do, and that’s just fantastic.”

Petterson is actually not about tooting his own horn, at least figuratively speaking, organizer Frank Panepento said. Yet he has always been an admired professional as a teacher, performer and mentor.

“This is the guy we were listening to,” Panepento said. “(Kenny) is very unselfish, never condescending, he was always very positive. He’s a teacher you always wanted to have.”

Other featured musicians will be Dave Martin of Rochester’s The Hit Men Brass Band, Steve Cooley of The Hit Men, Jeff Gibbens and Prime Time Brass, the Wendall Brothers with Parkside Avenue Brass. Brad Dewaal, Tommy Cecere, Harold McJury are playing with the Reunion Brass Ensemble. Performers are coming from Pennsylvania, Rochester and Florida for the show.

(Rochester's The Hit Men Brass Band)

St. Joseph’s Ensemble has been rehearsing and is excited to show off some new tunes. “Moon Dance” is a new one for the show. It was arranged by Donny Allen. Listeners will also get his rendition of the “God Bless America” and “Auld Lang Syne,” “Army Medley,” "Never Walk Alone," "Send in the Clowns" among others during the two-hour show.

“It’s very special to have all these guys come from all over to do this,” Panepento said. “This is to raise money to keep Crossroads House operational.”

It costs more than $200,000 a year to run Crossroads House, a home for terminally ill people. The Liberty Street site depends on donations and volunteers to keep the doors open. Musical Memories is an event where the all the proceeds go toward keeping the house open.

Tickets are $5 general admission, $10 preferred seating, and include merchant coupons and a free drink at Center Street Smoke House during the post-event party. They may be purchased at Crossroads House, Roxy’s Music Store on West Main Street, and Valle Jewelers on Jackson Avenue.

Workers outside the City Church building on East Main Street this afternoon. Pastor Marty Macdonald said the floodlights are being replaced with LEDs and crews also do some masonry maintenance.

The Batavia City Church will host guest speaker Erin Kelly, oldest daughter of Buffalo Bill's former quarterback Jim and his wife, Jill, as part of their Life Night Service.

The service will take place at 7 p.m. on Thursday, June 4. The church's band will start the service and then Erin will share thoughts and personal experiences from her latest book "Kelly Tough." A question and answer session will follow.

The book is a story of love between a father and his daughter. In her book, she emphasizes how her faith in God and ability to find strength in weakness helped her to withstand the challenges of her father's and brother's illnesses. 

Marty Macdonald, senior pastor at The City Church, talked with Jill Kelly's brother, Jack Wagner, to set up having Kelly speak at The City Church. According to Macdonald, the church loves what the Kelly family stands for and everyone is looking forward to hearing her story of family love and the greater love of the heavenly Father.

"I hope it will really bring people home," Macdonald said. "There are so many people in our society that are facing challenges whether it's cancer or broken homes or loss of employment, so many things that bring pain and hurt to people. Our hope is that as Erin is sharing her story it will bring great encouragement and hope to let them know that, hey, you can make it. You can go on another day and you don't have to give up."

The City Church regularly invites guest speakers to share their stories at their weekly Life Night Service. The church will welcome their next guest, Pastor Tommy Reid, for their Sunday morning service at 8:30 a.m. on June 7.

Photo from The City Church's Facebook page.

Members of City Church came together today to prepare and serve the church's annual Thanksgiving Day meal for those in our community who are in need or just in need of company and good cheer.

For the 13th straight year, City Church provided Thanksgiving meals to members of the community.

The annual event was first held at Miss Batavia restaurant when the church bought meals for everybody who wanted one between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m.

Now the church owns a building on Center Street, the Generations Center, with a kitchen and serves the community meal there.

The purpose of the free meal, said Pastor Marty Macdonald, is to ensure nobody need feel left out of the holiday.

"I grew up in home where it was very dysfunctional, very disjointed," Macdonald said. "Holiday times were the hardest because we had lost a sister, my brother, my dad by the time I was 13, so when holidays came it was hard on everybody. My heart was on humanity. I didn't want anybody to be alone."

Most of the volunteers are members of the church, but other community members volunteer and there were volunteers there today from Arcade and Syracuse.

"I think the people who serve get more out of it than those who are served," Macdonald said.

Vist us online: www.thecitychurch.com

Vist us online: www.thecitychurch.com

In a service that recalled in detail the tragedy, fears and horror of Sept. 11, 2001, Pastor Marty Macdonald's Sunday morning message was really about hope.

"We have the power to hope," he said, "in something greater than ourselves."

Sept. 11, Macdonald said, wasn't something that God "allowed" to happen, nor was it, as some have said, God's revenge on a nation gone astray.

"God didn't have anything to do with it," Macdonald said. "It was the work of the enemy."

The Sunday service at City Church opened with the usual praise worship, but then shifted gears to vignettes related to 9/11 -- first, community residents recalling what that day was like, then a scene of a daughter at breakfast with her mother, unable to comprehend why 9/11 is important, so her mother opens her computer to show her newsreels from that tragic day.

On the projection screens, scenes of 9/11 played out as they did in 2001, followed by the Oval Office speech from President George W. Bush.

After the videotapes from Sept. 11, 2001, three church members portrayed different people effected by 9/11: the daughter who lost her father; the firefighter who contracted cancer from working in the rubble of the Twin Towers; and the wife of Todd Beamer, the passenger on Flight 93 who famously uttered "Let's Roll" before passengers attempted to retake the hijacked airplane.

Macdonald said that at a time when people are losing confidence in our government, it's important to remember where to place our hope.

"When you place your confidence in human beings, you will always be disappointed," Macdonald said. "But when you place your hope in a living God, you will never be disappointed."

Oakfied resident Jim Beverly is a dog lover who has always wondered what his dogs were thinking -- or what they would say if they could talk.

And as an animal trainer who has four-legged hunting partners, he thought it would be interesting to produce a DVD that would use his talents, teach people something and be amusing, too.

So he created what he dubbed the "Fun DVD," which he is selling to help the Batavia City Church finish its kitchen project in the Generation Center. He is a member of the congregation. The rest of the money will go to Roswell Cancer Institute in Buffalo where his wife has been treated for a rare form of the disease.

"My mission in life is to help anyone I can with the talents and opportunities that God has entrusted me with," Beverly said. "The more pictures I looked at and the situations the dog was exposed to, the more I started imagining some funny remarks or thoughts that that particular animal may have had at the time.

"It's amazing at some of the things we demand and ask of our four-legged hunting partner."

Although his education is in marketing and engineering, his passion is retrievers and waterfowl hunting.

He has learned that a dog is a never-ending learning experience and it can always keep you on your toes.

"My filming project is going to be a down-to-earth retriever training DVD focusing on the everyday retriever owner and my techniques God has blessed me with. ... The education, experience and faith that I have is what has allowed me to be in the top of my profession.

There may be nothing quite like this DVD on the market. Beverly has done very little editing in order to show different personalities of dogs and how to deal with the training issues of each one.

"As I tell young people that happen to be attending any of my appearances, I did not take dog training 101, but a good education is the first step toward being able to choose what you want to do rather than being forced into something just to earn a living."

The DVD can be ordered directly from Beverly. Cost is $18, including shipping. His phone number is (716) 474-4661.

Beverly is working on another video that he plans to release next year.