PENNSYLVANIA LifeGate Church is nestled in a wooded area of Elizabethtown, 6 miles from the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant that partially melted down in 1979, almost rendering this pretty patch of central Pennsylvania along the Susquehanna River a radioactive wasteland. The church was formed in 2010, and now a half-acre of trees behind the building lay on their sides, cut down to make room for an expansion that will include a new youth center.

On an overcast Sunday morning last month, about 80 congregants pulled into the parking lot underneath brilliant orange and yellow foliage and filed in through the churchs red front doors, sharing warm greetings and smiles. I also pulled into the parking lot, glancing in the rearview mirror to see a car pulling in behind me with a sticker on its front windshield declaring, CRT MARXISM SUCKS.

I was welcomed by Pastor Don Lamb, a tall, gray-mustachioed man who had recently recovered from a heart attack. (Hed collapsed in a nearby diner and technically died, he told me. But people rushed to his aid and performed a miracle, resuscitating him.) Lamb had made it clear before I arrived at LifeGate that he was wary of journalists like me, but that the church would stand by its promise to welcome anybody for Sunday service. I took my place in the rows of adjoined chairs as a full band keyboardist, guitar player, bass player, drummer started to play worship songs. The congregants rose to their feet, some with palms facing upward and eyes closed, singing.

Lamb then introduced a visitor to the days service, Calvin Greiner, a middle-aged white man from over in Lititz who claims to receive prophetic visions from God. Greiner walked to the front of the room carrying a long sword and grabbed hold of the microphone.

I was instructed years and years ago to make a sword and to put on it specific words, Greiner said. He recited the swords inscription. Anointed and appointed. Worship. Warfare. Prayer. Intercession by the direction of the Lord Jesus Christ, he said. The other side says, The sword of the Lord my names not on here its The sword of the Lord. The sword of the Spirit.

This was in the office of Doug Mastriano some of you might know him for 225 days, Greiner continued. Mastriano, of course, is a state senator and Republican nominee for governor of Pennsylvania.

Greiner explained how God recently told him to retrieve the sword from Mastrianos office in Harrisburg, take it to Philadelphia, where a pastor at a church blessed it, and then to the nations capital. God said, After Philly, this must go to D.C. This must go to my Capitol in D.C. from Harrisburg, Greiner recalled, his voice breaking.

But before D.C., God told him to stop at LifeGate, where hed meet a man named Jim Emery, a church member who had worked as security for Mastriano during his campaign.

Greiner invited Emery and a couple of other men to join him at the front of the church, where they laid their hands upon the sword and began to pray as the guitarist strummed a soft melody.

Oh Lord and heavenly father, we thank you and pray to you that you gave us this sword to bind the powers of Satan and cast it out! one of the men said. As this sword moves to Washington, I pray by the powers of the Holy Spirit you will send your angels in and around that building, Lord. And you will touch the mighty Angel of God and find the power of Satan in Washington and run him out of town, Lord!

The guitarist continued playing as Greiner closed the prayers by exclaiming: So let God arise! Let his enemies scatter! Let those who hate God flee right now!

Lamb took hold of the microphone again.

We welcome you all to LifeGate, the church in the country thats trying to affect the country, he said. We truly believe that God has called the church to be more than a house of offerings, a house of sermons, a house of hymnals. This will be a house of activating people to be engaged in the world we will live in.

Lamb asked the congregation: How many of you look forward to the return of Christ? The crowd erupted into cheers and amens.

Thats coming, Lamb assured them, but you got work to do until then.