SILVANA — Eagles fly regularly over the Church on the Hill in Silvana.

“We thought of changing our name to Eagle Ridge,” laughed one of the founding members of a new nondenominational church called Falcon Ridge Fellowship that is meeting at the historical Church on the Hill.

Formerly members of The Point Church, Jim Newton, Ross Rader and Larry Dearing have been worshipping with Pastor Chris Musulman in his home. Their first service included 40 people 10 weeks ago. Since then, they grew to 55 and realized they had to find a new place to meet.

Ironically they found their new home while fishing.

“A member of our church was fishing one day and struck up a conversation with another fisherman,” Newton said, telling the story about how they found their new home.

It turns out the other guy was a member of the Peace Lutheran Church, and by the end of the day, they had agreed to meet and discuss the use of the Church on the Hill. They are celebrating their new found home with a special harvest service Sunday, Oct. 19.

“We really appreciate the generosity of the Peace Lutheran Church,” said Musulman. The board members of the new church noted that its a win-win situation since they have had some vandalism problems around the historical church.

“They have made a tribute to the ancestors of this place by maintaining it very well,” Newton said.

“Our mission is to create a loving, sharing and giving community that believes in honoring God and loving others,” said Ross Rader.

“We want to build real relationships,” Newton said.

“We are an accepting bunch, not judgmental,” Rader added.

One of the elders, Larry Dearing said the real question is, “Would Jesus be stuck in the back pew?”

The four guys admit they will approach the church in team spirit.

“Jim and Larry did football in college, so they know about teamwork. We believe we’re together for a common purpose,” Rader said.

Falcon Ridge Fellowship has a real commitment to worship, they all agreed. One of their members, Vicki Johnston will offer a Children’s Moment during the service.

“She uses media and a great sense of humor,” Musulman said.

“The adults like it just as much as the kids.”

They have lively music, too, with a keyboard, guitar, bass and percussion.

“We’ll have a lot of contemporary Christian tunes and a few hymns,” Rader said.

“We are planning a simple model. We don’t believe that people need to spend four or five nights at church to be good Christians.”

They said that the pastor of Peace Lutheran was a joy to work with.

“He said he’s not a stickler about details, just so we are preaching the gospel,” Musulman said.