New church bucks trend

SACKVILLE
By Yvette d'Entremont - The Weekly News
Last Sunday marked a milestone for a local church bucking a trend by steadily increasing its population at a time when many churches are struggling to stay afloat.
StoneRidge Fellowship (formerly Temple Baptist Church) officially opened the doors to its new, state-of-the-art facility on Sept. 13. Located on Temple Terrace just off Glendale Avenue, the 35,000 sq. ft. nondescript white building could easily be mistaken for a school or a medical clinic from the outside.
For more than six years, the congregation has been actively raising funds for construction of the new building to house its ever-increasing population. The church purchased 54 acres on Temple Terrace and has so far developed 13 acres.
After selling its former church site at 1000 Sackville Dr. to a carpentry trade school, church members spent the last eight months packing the Bedford Place Mall for Sunday worship services.
Late last week the Temple Terrace site was a beehive of activity as dozens of workers in hard hats completed the finishing touches to ensure the new building could open in time for a ribbon cutting and the first Sunday service at the new building. A grand opening is planned for Oct. 25.
"Our growth is an anomaly, but I think there are two basic things that cause growth. The message has not changed, the message of Christ, his death, and his resurrection," explained Lead Pastor Les Somers. "We don't dabble with that, water it down or change it. But we have actively taken steps to allow the message of Christ to be relevant today."
One of the ways to ensure the church remains relevant, Somers said, is to embrace and make use of high tech, modern media options to reach out and help spread the message of Jesus Christ. The new facility includes two rooms devoted to wires, sound boards, blinking lights and other technological wonders that ensure the church's sound and video systems operate optimally.
StoneRidge broadcasts a recorded version of its Sunday services via the Internet each week. It also streams a Sunday service live to its satellite site in Hubbards. Somers said the goal is to expand and offer four additional satellite sites in HRM.
"We have not stagnated. We're not in the 1900s or the 1960s, we are in the 21st century and we have kept up with that," Somers said. "The other, second important aspect of the growth of this church is the people are passionate about what they believe and they show it in the community. They're not just going to church on Sunday; it's a lifestyle, not just an add on."
The opening of the new, 35,000 sq. ft. building marks the completion of the first phase of StoneRidge's growth. The two-storey facility is bright and open, with many large windows and a vast parking lot to accommodate the hundreds of worshippers who'll attend the two morning services.
The new building includes offices, a boardroom, a hospitality area with kitchen facilities, a first-aid room, a library resource centre and two small auditoriums that seat 100 and 150 people. Phase one also includes a large (temporary) worship space capable of holding more than 500 people. When phase two is completed, that worship space will be devoted to the church's youth programs.
The foundation is already set for the second phase, which includes a 1,500 seat adjoining auditorium that will eventually serve as the church's primary meeting space and will have a footprint of 35,000 square feet.
When constructed, that auditorium will be larger than the Rebecca Cohn in Halifax. When not in use by the church, it will be available to the larger community, something Somers believes will help address a lack of performance space in northwest HRM. All the space in the new facility can be rented by the community when the space is not being used by StoneRidge.
The passion with which StoneRidge embraces its young children and youth is evident in the building's design. Bright rooms downstairs will hold cribs for infants, a preschool, and Sunday programs for elementary school- aged children. All children will be registered electronically for safety purposes.
"We're very passionate about children and about teenagers. Any church that does not address the family, the issue of raising children with moral training and spiritual upbringing, that church will not survive," Somers said. "They are the church of the future and the church of now, so we never forget the church is never one generation away from death."
More information about StoneRidge Fellowship can be found online at stoneridgefellow
ship.com.
ydentremont@hfxnews.ca