Dedication of the Sanctuary
By Lanny Peters, Pastor
Oakhurst Baptist Church
May 5, 2002
This day has been in the making for ten years. In 1992 a Long Range Capital Needs Committee was appointed by the church to review the existing buildings and grounds and meet with appropriate committees to compile some estimates for repairs or renovations. The members were Steve Berberich, Jim Culpepper, Dorothy Swindle, Warren Woolf, and Bill Reynolds. Following worship on February 28, 1993, the committee presented a report. What they told us was not good news. In so many words the committee told us our church house was practically in ruins.
Of course, the congregation had suspected as much. In fact, you could say we took pride in our old, dilapidated facility. It stood as a symbol that we placed our priorities in ministry, not in buildings. When Edward Cunningham first arrived and announced this was the ugliest church building he had ever seen, most of us went, “Amen, Brother. Thanks be to God.” But this committee insisted on reminding us there were real downsides to this way of thinking: there were safety issues that endangered the homeless men who resided in our building as well as our own children. The electrical system was a fire hazard. Plumbing, air and heat, and other systems were creating huge maintenance issues. Many spaces were not very usable, and there was a lack of accessibility for persons with disabilities.
The committee presented the bad news, but then invited us to join them as “we envision some possibilities for updating our building as a place of sanctuary, nurture, and outreach.” This caught our imagination. Could we do both? Could we renovate our building but not lose sight of our priorities?
We were intrigued enough to do two typical Oakhurst things. We discussed it for about a year, and then we appointed another committee, an Ad Hoc Committee on Building Needs. Mike Griffin was appointed chair, and the committee included Eunice Lovell, Debbie Bennett Reynolds, Alan Wasdin, and from the former committee, Warren Woolf and Jim Culpepper.
In the fall of 1994 a two members from the committee sat down with me and said that they not getting enough support from me as pastor for their work. They were right. I was among those who hoped the problems might go away. I also had come to Oakhurst feeling pretty safe I would never be involved in a major building campaign. It was about the last thing I wanted to do. I honestly told them I was not even sure how long I would be here as pastor and might not be around to see it through.
But I did agree to lead in planing a worship service to help heighten interest in their report, which they had spent a good part of a year developing. I preached on the importance of “Holy Space.” That day, and all along the way, I have said that from what I can gather from the biblical evidence, it seems God is ambivalent about buildings. When King David wanted to build the first Temple, God said in essence, “I am perfectly happy with that tent you carry around to represent my dwelling place among you.”
Like it or not, God seemed to realize humans just needed a place to assemble and worship and fellowship, so God reluctantly went along. I love the sign outside that says, “Oakhurst Baptist Church meets here,” reminding us our church is much more than this building. But I have also come to realize this building is important because it has become sacred space.
Walker Knight wrote of this in a poem in 1971 about the prayer meeting room in the old education building:
by Walker L. Knight
It was here we cried--
right here in this old room
that the tears came.
They came flowing free
for some and salty hot,
for others there was only a trickle.
It wasn't they didn't feel,
they just weren't used to crying.
We cried those tears
for friends who couldn't understand
for loved ones who had to leave
for some whose span had ended.
Those tears,
they hallowed this old room.
We cried those tears
for the joy of new discovery
for a thought so clearly said
that it took no time to think it.
We cried those tears
for the love we felt for each other
for the warming touch of friendship
for a hug so strong
it took the place of a thousand words.
We cried those tears
for the frustration of dreams we didn't have
for painful vacant nights
for the strain of visions
so bleak that time stood still.
We cried those tears
for the joy of full surrender
for the thrill of giving ourselves
to a call so loud and clear
that all others seemed but whispers.
Yes, we cried those tears
for love for death for challenge
for friends for hurts for celebration.
Those tears,
they hallowed this old room
and we aren't through crying yet.
In January, 1995, the Ad Hoc Building Needs Committee, after a year of work, concluded that our sacred space was no longer livable and that something major had to be done. It could not be put off any longer. They shared with us the costs of a total rehabilitation of the old education building but that it would be less disruptive and even save money to tear it down and build a new facility next door. After countless discussions, on October 1, 1995 our church voted to erect a new building to replace the Education Building.” It was time to appoint another committee.
On
July 7, 1996, we had a worship service in which we commissioned our Executive
Building Committee. The members were Neomia and Roger Sunday, chairs, Gary
Gunderson, Annie Ruth Harper, Richard Swindle, Leslie Withers, Bill Woolf,
myself, and Jim Culpepper. You will note that the one person named on every
committee over these 10 years is Jim Culpepper. No one has done more than Jim
through this process, and he has done it with enormous grace and even humor.
Gary
Gunderson preached that day about “A Theology of Place,” and had this to say,
“Maybe a happy by-product of our commitment to build the new building will be
clarity about why we believe it is good news to us that this community exists.
When are we happier than when we hear somebody say to someone who is rejected
elsewhere, ‘Why don’t you come with me to Oakhurst, you’ll be welcome there.’
We can buy a new building. But we cannot buy the innkeepers. Where will they
come from? Will God raise up enough to keep the doors open? The nature of the
community determines the future. If we do nothing significant and avoid risks,
we attract insignificant, risk-aversive people. We believe those on the journey
will continue to find our way to this corner. And we believe there will be
people here to open the doors.”
Which brings us to our scripture for today from Isaiah. Isaiah is not the kind of person you want on your Building Committee. He would be like Will Campbell, when he preached at Myers Park Baptist Church in Charlotte some years ago. I have been told Will walked up the stairs of their impressive raised pulpit and stood silently surveying the magnificent colonial style sanctuary until people began to get uncomfortable. Finally he spoke, saying, “You folks ought to sell this place and go follow Jesus.”
But since he figured they were not going to do that, he went on to tell them some of the things they might do short of that to maintain their integrity. If Isaiah were here today, he would probably preach in that same vein. He might say, well you got yourself a good place here, but my question is what are you going to do with it? Will it continue to be a place of sanctuary, nurture, and outreach as you once envisioned? Will it be a place where those who are marginalized and even despised find refuge and support? Will you work towards loosing the thongs of injustice, doing what you can to help the oppressed go free? Will you share your bread with the hungry? Will you create the kind of community where you are not pointing the finger at one another but are offering a healing community where people feel loved and strengthened to offer back love in the world?
If you do these things, Isaiah says, “Then your light shall rise in the darkness, and your gloom like the noon day. The Lord will guide you continually, and satisfy your needs in parched places, and make your bones strong; you shall be like a watered garden (like the Swint courtyard looks today, I might add), like a spring of water, whose waters never fail.
Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in.”
Listen again to Gary’s words from 1996 before we began building: “Ours is a time when those on the margins are despised, not pitied. It is even more important now that we build a place that reflects that God we have come to trust. We need a place where that kind of loving God can be experienced long after any of our names will be remembered, except that we were part of a congregation that loved a journey, worshipped a God for those on the way and built an inn at Oakhurst. We trust the next generation of innkeepers will find us. Not just the wounded need a place to rest; helping people also need a place to serve. And, as we know, frequently, the wounded become the leading servers the next lap of the journey.”
As an image of what Gary is talking about here, I offer Rick Zahn, who has lived the last year in our Recovery House. From living on the streets, in despair and suicidal, Rick has reclaimed his life. He found his way here because Richard Cruce who had just found Oakhurst himself, said “Why don’t you come with me to Oakhurst, you’ll be welcome there.” Rick now blesses us with his story and his gifts of drama and music.
Rick needed a sanctuary and would not have survived without our place here, and our community that benefits from having him here. Isaiah is right, welcoming folks from the margins into our church helps make our bones strong. Isaiah’s words turn out not to be a warning, but an invitation to bring light to our darkness and water to our parched souls.
We had no idea what we were getting into when we began, which may have been just as well. The costs were scary then; initial estimates in 1995 were that the entire project would cost $974,000. I showed this report to Cathy Culpepper yesterday, and we had a good laugh. This project has cost more than $4 million to date and we now owe about $1.3 million to the bank.
We have had to adjust our plans numerous times since 1996, when we drew up our plans. The building committee looked at Jim Culpepper like he was crazy when he suggested we move the Recovery Program from the fourth floor of the new building to a house we could buy and renovate next door. But it turned out to be a brilliant move, in terms of funding and program needs.
We broke ground after worship on June 1, 1997. We expected to be finished with the new building in a year. It was over two years later on July 11, 1999 that we had enough of a building to have a laying of the cornerstone, with the words “Not Here By Chance,” inscribed on the outside. Inside we placed symbols of our ministries and a group photograph of all present that day.
We grew so
tired of the delays and so ready to move in that we forced the
contractor's hand by setting a date in November, 1999, to move the church
offices. We packed up the office and moved the phone system, which turned out
to be a huge mistake when we did not get an occupancy certificate. For the next
six months, the staff would live out of boxes, and we would be without an
adequate phone system. We tried to laugh at a situation where Chris and I had
to share a single phone during that time.
But while all this was going on, something else also had our
attention; a little matter with the Georgia Baptist Convention.
Remember Gary’s words I quoted earlier: “Maybe a happy by-product of our commitment
to build the new building will be clarity about why we believe it is good news
to us that this community exists.”
It turned out
that the conflict with the Georgia Baptist Convention provided us such an opportunity. That whole
process was a defining moment for our church and my own ministry as well. I
believe it gave us the opportunity to define ourselves with the world looking
on. We came out of it with a strong sense of identity. We were able to provide
a powerful witness of what it means for us to be Baptist and inclusive. We have
benefited from it in many ways, including a big increase in visitors, which
still continues.
“We can buy a new building. But we cannot buy the innkeepers.” Many on the journey will continue to find their way to this corner and help us keep open the doors. It will take all of us, long timers and newcomers, to finish our dream together.
While we were trying to figure out how to construct and fund our buildings, we were working in other ways on our clarity about why we believe it is good news to us that this community exists. We were chosen to be one of 13 churches nationwide for a $1.3 million dollar Lily Foundation pilot project on Youth Spirituality and Ministry. While we were creating safe and adequate space for our children, we have in this way and many others been just as concerned about how we nurture our children in faith. We are growing innkeepers for another generation. In 1999, we were named in a study as one of 300 excellent congregations in the country. It was not because of our new building.
We have not stopped doing ministry and missions through all this building. An amazing example of this is that Jim Culpepper has continued to teach Sunday school. We have not stopped forming new missions groups.
We have been chosen as one of four Atlanta churches for a Faith and Disability Project, where we can learn and model how to be an even more inclusive congregation. On Pentecost Sunday, June 11, 2000, we celebrated the opening of our new building.
Betty Thompson in her wheel chair led the dance across the bridge onto our new space. Betty had grown up here at Oakhurst, but for the first time in all her years, she could now participate fully in the life of the congregation.
In August of 2000, we moved out of the old sanctuary building and soon after watched it being torn down. The prayer meeting room which Walker spoke of in his poem was gone, but not the community of faith he celebrated. We thought we were through building. We had no plans to renovate the sanctuary at all, until the city of Decatur showed up to inspect the new building. Suddenly, we did not have the time for the process that we usually take around here. We had no choice about doing at least enough to satisfy the city’s fire and other codes. We found ourselves unexpectedly out of the sanctuary from September 17, 2000, and began worshipping in Fellowship Hall. No one dreaded it more than I did, but in many ways it turned out to be a special time. We found out quickly how wonderfully adaptable that space is. To our surprise, even during that time new people continued to visit and many stayed. That fall of 2000, we started another building campaign as our first three-year campaign was completed.
Many of the innkeepers who helped lead that second campaign were not even here when we began in 1996, such as Glenn and Sylvia Barrett, and Ruben Swint. On All Saints Sunday, November 5, 2000, we had our first dedication of our new building, capping a wonderful weekend.
On Easter 2001, we had our first service in this beautiful renovated sanctuary. The next week we hosted the Alliance of Baptists’ national meeting, something that would not have been possible without our new space. Today we have the final dedication of our new facilities. Fittingly, there is still some work not completed on the back wall and some more work on the acoustics, as well as the playground. We basically have a new building from top to bottom, something the committee in 1992 never dreamed we could do, especially when their warnings about our building fell mostly on deaf ears.
But I celebrate today not just the building but the process. In that sermon in January 1995 when I reluctantly preached about the building, I said “I am hopeful because if I have learned anything in my time here, I have learned to trust the process.”
Our process has not been perfect, but we have strived to make it open, inclusive, and fair. It is something we have done together.
The Alban Institute did a study which showed that pastors leave churches at a higher rate during building campaigns than any other time in a church’s life. I would like to say that thanks be to God, we have not only survived but thrived during these years.
In my sermon on September 22, 1996, the day the initial plans for our new building were presented, I closed by saying: I have known many churches that built new facilities, and were cautious and protective about who used them. I thank God I am part of a church which will not be satisfied unless we find as many ways as possible that these buildings can be used in ministry. I can’t wait to see what God dreams us for us to do with this new building--which, I believe, is the only way God gets interested in buildings anyway. I for one an glad I am going to be around to see what God has in store as we build for ministry.”
That day is here. In the last year, we have already seen a dramatic increase in the requests to use our building. The Decatur Department of Recreation and the Oakhurst Community Center are now using the building for children’s groups on Saturdays. On May 26, we will host the Baccalaureate Service for Decatur High School. I was told the reason for accepting our invitation was our facilities and just as important, our commitment to diversity.
Nancy Ammerman, who served as the chair of the search committee that recommended me to Oakhurst, wrote a wonderful note to the Oakhurst web list with which I would like to close. “Wish we could be there for this celebration! You have created a wonderful space that embodies your history and your dreams, that speaks in bricks and bushes and rockers of your continued commitment to the neighborhood, and that welcomes and challenges those who enter. The investments all of us have made in these buildings are nothing compared to the riches we've received from the community of faith that has gathered there all these years.”