TN church helps pay off $8M in medical debt

TN church helps pay off $8M in medical debt 
WKRN.com, Johnson City, TN; by Kenzie Hagood and Jayonna Scurry; 8/22/24 
A Tennessee church paid off around $8 million in community members’ medical debt in partnership with a national program. The Altar Fellowship Church is changing many lives across the Tri-Cities by helping people relieve medical debt. ... Senior Pastor Mattie Montgomery cast the vision to his church years after losing his father. “The story meant so much like to our senior pastor, Pastor Matty, because [he lost] his father to cancer at the young age of eight,” Morrison [another pastor] said. “And while he was on hospice care at home, a businessman from their town bought Christmas gifts for their entire family. And so that was an inspiration for him ..." The church raised about $50,000 in one day, unknowingly helping to pay off the debts of some of its own congregation.