The Norton Baptist Church held the Grand Opening Dedication for their new expansion on Sunday, June 20th, 2010. It was the result of a visioning process and strategic plan that began six years ago, and the finishing touches were recently made to this great new facility. In September of 2008 the church began the “Building Generations of Faith” capital campaign. It called on the church to continue to build on the legacy of faith that previous generations left for the church and community through its 137 year history. The church responded well to that campaign and in July of 2009 the ground breaking ceremony was held. In August of last year construction began and by January 2010 we were beginning to use the building while finishing touches were completed.
Since we began to use what will be known as the “Family Life Centre”, it has been a great blessing to our children’s and youth ministry. A group of men from the community are playing floor hockey in it, some students are using it for basketball and the St. Andrew’s United Church used it for their 100th Anniversary Banquet. The church continues to hope it will be a blessing to our community in many ways.
The expansion includes the main room which is an air-conditioned sports, banquet, meeting space. There are also new washrooms, equipment room and a great bonus room for meetings and other events upstairs. The church was blessed to have T&M Maritime Homes from Sussex and all of their subcontractors as well the time, talents and resources of its own people to see this all come together.
The Grand Opening included a brief history that led the church to this point, remarks from our Mayor, Wendy Alcorn and our MLA, Bev Harrison. Special appreciation was also shown to our designer, Peter Carr for his generosity and help through the project. Members of the Steering Committee for the project took part in the words and prayer of dedication. Church members, friends, community members and representatives from churches in the area were present to witness the dedication.
