Light at end of tunnel for First Christian Church

TUPELO, Miss. (AP) - For the past year and some months, the Rev. Sherry Horton of First Christian Church has been making a lot out of a little.

She works out of a mobile unit behind what used to be her church, flattened in the tornado of April 28, 2014, and does everything from a single laptop.

Beside the entrance, minutes from the building committee’s meetings are stapled neatly into the wall, along with flyers for the church’s various ministries, like a call for donations of shoes, and blankets to be gifted to Faith Haven emergency shelter for abused children.

“I think I’m most proud of the fact that we’ve carried on with everything we were doing before the storm,” Horton said. “We didn’t miss a single month with our ministries. That, and even in all this mess we’ve added members. We’re growing.”

Services have been held in the unit’s main space, speakers and a keyboard crammed into one corner, while Sunday School and Bible studies take place in one of the unit’s half a dozen 6-by-12 rooms. They shuffle folding tables in and out of the makeshift sanctuary for their weekly meal.

But outside, the remains of the old church are being remade into the new church. In the past few weeks, the skeleton of a new sanctuary has been erected, highly visible from the street below.

“As soon as they went up, everyone’s morale improved. It actually looks like a church now,” Horton said.

The new church will mostly keep the same layout as the old building, with a few tweaks. Instead of a separate building to hold the fellowship hall, everything will be under one roof.

The choir space will be enlarged, and the church will use a portable baptistery.

“We’re trying to build to what the insurance paid, so we don’t have any debt,” she said. “Some people want bigger and better, but this will be adequate for what we need. We want to get the playground for the kids rebuilt quick. That’s really important for us.”

The original structure was built in the late ’60s, and the rebuild will be updated structurally to code.

“It’s just obvious that it’s being built better, especially with the steel structure instead of wood, like the last one. They told me another tornado might come across the hill, but if it did, it won’t take the building,” she said. “I think this time has gone to show the spirit of our people.”

Horton said she hopes the congregation will be in their new home by Christmas, but said the end of the year is more likely.

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Information from: Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, https://djournal.com