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The first United Methodist Church left its shrine on May 6 and removed one of its two traditional services. It's a temporary movement as the church receives updates from its sanctuary.
"We have traditionally, in the past 15 years, had three services on Sundays," said Mark McGee, chairman of the board of directors. Traditional services are at 8:45 am and 11 am Sunday. Contemporary services, called the New Spirit Worship Service, is at 9 am, with a rock and roll guitar. Traditional services reside in the sanctuary and contemporary services are housed in the fraternity hall.
McGee says that the sanctuary did not have the technology or scene large enough for contemporary service, in which one-third of the congregation participates.
But about two years ago, the church formed a committee called "Cornerstone Committee".
"They were instructed to explore the possibility of bringing both to the shrine," she explains. . The first, he said, was because all members of the church should be able to use the sanctuary, and the second was based on the promise that technology would not undermine the architecture.
"The essential was to allow," he continues.
McGee goes on to say that the service relates to the instruments and efficiency.The sanctuary as it was in May does not did not have all the loudspeakers and cabling required to respond to this request, and the committee considered how to address this issue and the committee decided to update the sanctuary.
At one year old, McGee said that there were three churchwide meetings to discuss whether the congregation had to go ahead to update the shrine. board of directors voted on how and decided to integrate technology.
The traditional part of the congregation moved from the shrine, the early traditional service was cut off and the two congregations settled in the fraternity hall, the crews arrived and installed about 50 00 0 feet of electrical wiring that is hidden at 99.9% throughout the church. New lights were hung on the rafters. New speakers have been placed, and they are working on ways to remove an older speaker installed some time ago.
This part of the updates should be finished on Tuesday.
The previous altar was removed and a new altar is twice as large, was installed. McGee said that they took five benches to accommodate it. These benches will be reinstalled in the church corridors as were the benches previously removed.
They also had to settle for having a Christmas tree in the sanctuary. The 1908 Steinway Piano, which comes from an Ivy League School, will now reside permanently on the left side of the altar.
"He's always been on the right," says McGee
. do not move anymore, but now the piano is in a better place: its top will open to the public, which is supposed to be much better for the music, said McGee; and the pianist and the organist can see each other.
While all this work is going on, McGee said they'll make a video of the more than 1,500 organ pipes that they have inside the walls. They are not those who are visible in the sanctuary; those, McGee said are just for looks. This organ can not be moved either. It was installed around 1950 and is here to stay.
Other updates include redoing the floors, putting in LED lighting, working on reviving the bell tower and more …
It had been 22 years old "McGee explained that & ### 39, they had stopped using the bell tower about ten years ago because cracks appeared in the foundation wall adjacent to the tower. It has since been reinforced, and an inspector said the bell was good for shooting away.
The ladders that go up to the tower are being replaced for security reasons. They also get a new yoke and gong for the bell which is 33 inches wide at the base, made of solid bronze and weighs 316 pounds. McGee says, "This is not a big bell for a church," he says.
Church staff will now be able to record what's going on in the sanctuary and do live streaming. They plan to post some of these records on Facebook. They also have some laser light projectors installed on the walls, which will be used on special occasions. A large retractable screen has also been added
The day the congregation returns to the sanctuary, they will also reenter the time capsule. The capsule was dug up in May 2017 for the 100th anniversary of the church. They filled it with new treasures to show the future generation what it was like to live right now.
McGee said the updates will make the sanctuary friendly for weddings, funerals and more.
At this time, there is no set date for the entrance of the congregation.
As for who pays for all this work, it will be the church. The church already had money, so they are all covered. They also think of doing more work in the future, such as recovering stained glbad windows with new protection. The current glbad that protects them has yellowed with age and prevents those who are in the street from easily seeing the subtleties of the glbad.
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