Benton Assmebly of God was planted in December 1991 by Pastor Andrew Peter Christiansen and his wife, Charleen.  The church was a daughter church of Glad Tidings Assembly of God in Bloomsburg, PA. They began meeting in the Benton High School until they bought their current building. In 1997, Pastor Mark Shellenberger was voted in as Benton's second pastor where he and his wife, LouAnn served the congregation faithfully as it continued to grow.  Pastor Shellenberger retired after over 20 years of ministry but stayed to help lead the congregation until it's current Pastor, Bill McClure was voted in January 2022.   

He along with his wife Pastor Bethany Joy are excited for what God is getting ready to do through Benton Assembly of God in the communities surrounding the church. They are excited to carry on the original vision of the church to reach Benton and the surrounding communities for Jesus!

Pastor Bill and Pastor Bethany Joy share a passion to share the love of God through serving and helping people, building relationships, and bringing Jesus to those who are walking in darkness. They both grew up in Coatesville, Pennsylvania and met at church. Bill and Bethany were married in 2005. They began to start their family in 2008 and now currently have four children.

Bill graduated from Millersville University with a Bachelors Degree in Elementary Education and taught in the Coatesville Area School District for 13 years.  The call to enter into ministry came in 2009 and both Bill and Bethany began serving in local missions opportunities with their home church in Reading, PA. Bethany found a passion in teaching children and Bill started serving a local homeless shelter. 

In 2015, God asked the family to take a leap of faith and start moving out of local missions and go into foreign missions. In 2017, Bill and Bethany felt the call to walk in faith with their 4 children and became Missionaries with the AG World Missions to bring the Gospel to the Carribean Region. They joined a church plant on the Island of Antigua and served there until 2019.  Bill helped build up the Bible School and used his professional teaching skills to teach men and women who felt the Call of God to became minsters themselves, while Bethany worked in the kids ministry that was growing in the church. While in Antigua, both Bill and Bethany worked on becoming Credentialed Ministers with the Assembly of God.  Bethany is currently a Licesned Minister and Bill is an Ordained minister.

When the time came to return to Pennsylvania to raise support again, they had every intention of going back to the Caribbean to continue serving God on the foreign missions field, but God had other plans.  After itinerating for nearly two years (through the pandemic) God asked them to trust him and change the direction of their ministry. After a lot of prayer and surrender, the McClure family resigned as Missionaries with the Assemblies of God World Missions to seek God’s will for their future. 

On December 12th, 2021, Bill and Bethany walked in the front doors of Benton Assembly of God and immediately felt like they were home. God made it very clear that this is what He had planned all along for them and on January 16th, 2022, Bill was voted in as the 3rd  Pastor of Benton AG.

Pastor Bill and Pastor Bethany are serving together as they reach the Benton Community and surrounding areas. Their “missionary” hearts for reaching the lost did not go away when they stepped away from the foreign mission field- instead it intensified for the mission field that God brought them here to- Benton, Pennsylvania.

We are a proud part of the Assemblies of God.

Salvation Through Jesus Christ

Salvation is deliverance from spiritual death and enslavement by sin. God provides salvation for all who believe and accept His free offer of forgiveness. Mankind's only hope of redemption from the fallen sinful state is through the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son's blood that was shed as Jesus died on the cross. [The account of the crucifixion of Jesus is recounted by four of His contemporaries: Matthew (chapter 27), Mark (chapter 15), Luke (chapter 23), and John (chapter 19).] (Luke 24:47; John 3:3,16,17; Rom. 8:16; 10:13-15; Ephesians 2:8,9; 4:24; Titus 2:11-12; 3:5-7)

Divine Healing

Divine healing is an integral part of the gospel. Deliverance from sickness is provided for in the atonement, and is the privilege of all believers. (Isa. 53:4,5; Matt. 8:16,17; James 5:14-16)

Baptism in the Holy Spirit

All believers are entitled to receive the baptism in the Holy Spirit, and therefore should expect and earnestly seek the promise of the Father, according to the command of our Lord Jesus Christ. This was the normal experience of all believers in the early Christian church. With the experience comes the provision of power for victorious Christian living and productive service. It also provides believers with specific spiritual gifts for more effective ministry. The baptism of Christians in the Holy Spirit is accompanied by the initial physical sign of speaking in other tongues (unlearned languages) as the Spirit of God gives them audible expression. (Luke 24:49; Acts 1:4,8; 2:4; 8:12-17; 10:44-46; 11:14-16; 15:7-9; 1 Cor. 12:1-31)

The Second Coming of Christ

All Christians who have died will one day rise from their graves and will meet the Lord in the air. Christians who have not yet died will be raptured or caught up with them, to be with the Lord. Then Christians of all ages will live with God forever. The scriptural truth of the Lord's soon return is "the blessed hope". (Romans 8:23; 1 Corinthians 15:51-52; 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17; Titus 2:13)

Learn more about what we believe.