Friendship Baptist Church under construction

HENAGAR Carpenters for Christ are helping make a new church building a reality for the congregation of Friendship Baptist Church.

Loretta Shankles, a 50-year member of the congregation, said the church created a building fund about 10 years ago, and things fell into place earlier than expected when Carpenters for Christ volunteered to help build the church.

We werent expecting it to happen this summer, Shankles said. A group of Carpenters for Christ from Piedmont framed and blocked in the church. There were almost 100 of them that conducted this mission. They did a tremendous amount of work. Some of the Carpenters for Christ said they want to come back when we get started on the sheetrock.

Shankles said the existing church building near Henagar was built in the 1930s and is supported by rock pillars. She said over time the pillars had become unstable and some of the Sunday School rooms had started to sag and pull away from the building.

The new building is being built just below the existing church. The church tore down its existing fellowship hall to build a larger church building. Shankles said the new building will be a little large for about 60 Sunday school children and a weekly service count of about 80-100 people.

Were not a big church, she said. The new one is big. Were building for the future. We know God can fill it up.

Shankles said she visited the church on Wednesday morning and windows were being put into the building. However she said there was still a lot left to do. She said electrical and plumbing had to be installed and next the church would be bricked. She said a nice addition to the church is a basement with rebar-reinforced concrete that could provide shelter from severe weather something the church escaped last April.

We were fortunate that we didnt have any damage from the tornadoes, Shankles said. I think some shingles may have been blow off, but that was it. God was good to us, and we werent damaged by the storm.

Shankles said she wasnt sure when the congregation would hold its first service in the new church which has been pastored by Darrell Sears since 1994.

We havent heard an exact date, she said. We still have a lot of work to do before we can get into it. Were hoping for the first of the year, but we dont know for sure.

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Friendship Baptist Church under construction