New Church Nearing Completion

By Stacy Lange

5:07 p.m. EST, March 5, 2012

Members of the church who outgrew their old church are in the middle of building a new one.

Methodist Pastor Jean-Pierre Duncan said when four struggling churches in and around Newton Township merged four years ago a church was just a distant dream.

"The four churches, they wanted to do together what they couldn't do separately. They didn't have very strong Sunday schools in each of the churches," said Pastor Duncan.

Construction at the new Countryside Community Church is well underway. A few hundred members of the four merged congregations raised almost $3 million build the new church.

When finished, the new sanctuary that looks out on to Newton Ransom Boulevard, will seat twice as many members as their current building less than a mile down the road.

Since the merger, church members said they have been running out of room in the current building and there are a few other problems. Members have to cross a busy road to get to services on Sunday.

"The point of our churches coming together was to build our church and reach out to the whole community so we're building a church to invite our entire community to join us," said church member Keith Eckel.

He and other members launched a capital campaign and raised almost all of the money necessary to complete the new building. In a struggling economy, members said they were worried this project would never get off the ground.

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New Church Nearing Completion