Gazette.Net: Former Gaithersburg church to move from temporary home in Damascus school

Tom Fedor/The Gazette Members of the Christian Life Center gather to celebrate the construction of their new church building with a ground breaking on the Ijamsville on Sunday. The church, based in Gaithersburg since 1974, has been housed at Damascus High School for about six weeks.

A church that has been holding services in a Damascus school building is beginning work on a new facility on 64 acres in Frederick County.

The Christian Life Center, based in Gaithersburg since 1974, has been housed at Damascus High School for about six weeks, according to the Rev. Ron Libby. He said the church sold its property to help pay for the new construction.

The high school has been a temporary fix for the 1,000 parishioners who attend each week, Libby said.

The congregation of the new Christian Life Center, at 3154 Green Valley Road in Ijamsville, broke ground Sunday. The church declined to say how much the new church cost. However, its website shows $1.6 million was raised to build the facility in 2008.

The new site is 64 acres up from 6 acres at the Gaithersburg site.

But the switch has challenges, Libby said. The church holds services from 10 a.m. to noon on Sundays at Damascus High School, 25921 Ridge Road in Damascus. The church must bring equipment to the school for services as its needed and dismantle it following the service.

Libby said the new church was needed to ease overcrowding at the churchs previous location, at 11800 Darnestown Road.

Itll be a state-of-the-art building, he said. It will be quite considerably larger. Our sanctuary was packed out down in Gaithersburg.

The churchs new 65,000-square-foot building will seat about 1,200 and includes an area for youth.

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Gazette.Net: Former Gaithersburg church to move from temporary home in Damascus school