Renovation Report: Community in Christ Lutheran Church

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CORNELIUS – Community in Christ Lutheran Church, at the intersection of Sam Furr Road and Catawba Avenue, began its first life in a double-wide trailer back in 1978.

The first congregation wasn’t able to hear about fire and brimstone in an actual brick-and-mortar building until the early 1980s, once it had outgrown the trailer, said the Rev. Travis Norton, the senior pastor at the church.

But the church, which dominates the corner of Sam Furr and Catawba, has needed additional space for close to eight years, Norton said, but added that a new sanctuary building will be risen over the next eight or nine months.

“Even before I came, the congregation and senior pastor said there was a need for a bigger sanctuary,” he said. “We’ve been to the brink before and it fell through. With the way the economy has been and with job losses, it just didn’t work out.”

But last week, the church and congregation held a ground breaking ceremony and Norton said that within the next two weeks he expects Charlotte-based Edifice, the general contractor, to crank up construction on the new 300-seat sanctuary building.

The existing sanctuary seats only 150 people, which was no longer enough.

“Two years ago on Easter Sunday, it was so crowded we took the doors of and had people sitting all the way out in the narthex and people have been sitting there every service,” Norton said. “This summer has also been wild with attendance. The summer attendance usually dips, but it hasn’t.”

The $2.2 million, 7,000-square-foot new sanctuary will have a nursery, a choir room and a narthex, all of which will be connected to the main church building by a breezeway. The new building is set to be finished by May 2014, Norton said. Once Community in Christ begins holding services in the new building, the old sanctuary will be used for educational and group meeting space.

One of the more interesting things about the project is the financing source: Mission Investment Fund. MIF is a lender for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and provided money for the new sanctuary. But MIF isn’t a typical lender. Any interest collected by MIF on the loans is put toward projects and missions for the entire Lutheran church.

Project description: Edifice is about to start work on a new sanctuary building for Community in Christ Lutheran Church.

Address: 7621 Norman Island Drive, Cornelius

Square footage: 7,000

Cost: $2.2 million

General contractor: Edifice

Start date: Work is set to start in two weeks

Completion date: May 2014