With barbecue and things like that. There’s some TVs up that you can see the progress of things that happen, but lot of lot of good friends and family here. Just thank you everyone for coming. At this time, I’m going to turn it over to the chairman of the deacons, Darryl McCoy.
Well, welcome everybody here on behalf of the deacons of Bethel Avenue Church. When we started this vehicle, at first, let me acknowledge Mr. John McKibben for being here today. Mr. Don Cobb was our architect.
He’s here with us. Bobby Boswell is here somewhere. That was pastor here. Jenkins is with us. When we started the building, if any of you were around, remember the old Sunday school building we had here?
We looked at it. We looked at it. We had several meetings on it. Come in one Sunday, standing over there where my pickup, Spartan Half. And the preacher walked up and I told him I thought we just needed to build a new building.
I didn’t think the logistics of the building worked. However it had served his purpose. And he spoke up and said, well, I’ve been praying for a new building. That’s all I wanted to hear. That’s how we got started on the building.
We went from that. That was in early 2017. We started pulling a building community together, drawing plans, drawing a footprint. Come up with a conceptual design. Decided it had to be metal because we couldn’t span it enough with wood.
Got with Tyson. Tyson come up with our building plan for the building itself. Put it all together, brought it up. Church conference. Church was good with it at that time.
That’s when we hired Mr. Don. Got started drawing the inside. That’s the easy part. After that, March 30, 2021, we took the building.
Now it’s probably on the slide show in there if you want to see it there again. That was the easy part. Got the building built. Prices skyrocketed to the pandemic. Everything almost doubled.
We’d already decided to do some of the work, but we decided to do more of the work ourselves. So the regular crew that showed up most of the time was me, the pastor, David McKinney, David Burgess, Ken Smith and Philip McDonald. Bobby Aberrathy was in some. We had a lot that were in and out, but I was just a handful of almost and just endured the pressure for some reason. But finishing a metal building, if you see it now, you wouldn’t be amazed if overlap.
Everything was handcut. Nothing is storeball, as we call it. We moved on to the crisis. We shopped, we come out as best we could.
We also had Carol and Geo them. They were always here for us, to feed us. So we’re appreciative of that going on as well. The building was finished. We co May the 22nd, we come back in, put a few finishing touches up on the building.
We do have a couple of projects left. Far as we’re going to put some memory or dedication bricks in this inset right here, or we’re waiting to the end till we see exactly how many should go in based on the cost because they were originally based on 10 sqft being purchased or donated by anybody bought your brick, which right now said that $425 square foot. So the other two projects we have left is we will put ventilation fans in the gymnasium along with heat in the gymnasium. And then we got to grind that floor and have it polished due to the amount of mud that was trapped in and brought in during the construction process.
We want to thank everybody that has donated to this project, whether it’s money, labor, time or whatever. We are truly thankful for it, and we hope it’ll be a blessing to the children, to the children of this community and God’s glory at this time. I’m going to let this shirt come and say a few words to you.
Let me get no problem. Where are you going to be?
All right. Thank you very much. Natural Baptist Church I am just so happy to be able to be here today. First, I want to say thank you to all of the ones who donated and all of the ones who worked so hard here so many days. It was an overwhelming to see what all of these men and others could do.
There were some accidents, I understand, but I hope everybody is okay. Now is the time for us to okay. I’m sorry. Now is the time to use it for what God has in store with you. I am so happy to see so many of the young people here, such a nice place for them.
Learn and enjoy. I grew up in Rocky Mountain. It was such a nice little community and still is. And I’m so glad that so many of you have decided to make this church home. Because of the ones like me and of older ones, we are not able to do it anymore.
So it’s so good to have some young people come in and do those jobs in this community. There are just so many memories and so many friends. I’ve been in Bethel all my life. My parents and grandparents here. Matter of fact, my grandmother was the first one baptized in the food.
I was baptized in the food in 1952. I started playing the piano in the 10th grade and often on. I played for 30 years. I got married at Bethel on January 1 955 to Melbourne Window. He loved Bethel, too.
I lost him in 1992, but our three children were always a part of Method. We began to eat more room. So the old lunch room that I went to school in and the lunchroom was one that I ate it every day was village here makes any food room. Nice city right now. We started raising money for the fellowship hall around 2007.
NELTA McCoy, myself, and several more were only for me. It was completed in 2008. We had plenty room. We thought we’d have plenty of room to last forever, but all down the line, we realized that we were getting overcrowded. So back in 2017 or 18, I asked Darryl one day, what do we need to do?
He said, Miss, surely we need another larger building that will have at least four fundraiser rooms and activity. We started another fundraiser, and then until now, it was being built. I want to thank all of you again who helped to build this, and especially will thank the new members that we can do anymore. We had the Valentine’s party here in February, and I got to see it then. I had not seen it too much because of COVID I was ecstatic.
It was exactly what Darryl said. So thank you, Darryl, so much.
Oh, by the way, it’s totally I’ll try not to be more than 45 minutes here, but no, I would just thank you, Darryl and Miss Shirley. And once again, as Darryl said, there have been so many people you might not have worked, you might have gave, you may have just helped with ideas you may have done. There’s so many people that have put so much into this, and just from the bottom of our heart, we thank you and praise you. And there’s times that I just thought, oh, we’re going to run out of money, we’re getting low. Darryl said, yeah, Gordon over June, he didn’t start it for nothing.
And then the money would come and he didn’t tell you. Up to this point, we owe nothing on this building. Praise the Lord.
He makes it happen. That’s right. And we’ve just been trusting Him for that. I just wanted to share with you, and you can look at it later, just for a couple of minutes. I won’t preach this morning, but that’s a relevant story in scripture, in First Chronicle 28, and you can look it up, verses one through ten where David brought together all the people of Israel, all the elders of Israel, much like we’re doing here today and saying, I want to build the temple, but God told me I couldn’t.
So my son is going to take over. He’s going to build the temple, and he’s going to do that. I was talking to Brother Bobby before this, and he said, you know, back in the early, what, sixty s or seventy s, we talked about maybe a building, maybe not, and it just never happened. I said, but you laid the groundwork, and others build upon that. And in God’s timing, he put together the building so everybody has a part.
1829 this church was established the early 19 hundreds. It was built. They built this. Now we built this. And the Lord has done it all in his timing to pass on to our children, to give, not just a tool for us today, but a tool for years to come.
That’s what David tells his son Solomon. When you build the temple, I’ve got all the equipment, all the tools together for you to come and worship the Lord our God. This is a tool for us to worship the Lord our God, to make disciples for the building of the kingdom of God. And we want to pass that on to our children as a tool for them to come for years to come. This is what inspired most of this for me, for the children, that we have a place for them to come and to play, to learn about God.
And we’ve got other classrooms for adults, but that’s what it’s for. So I just wanted to share that with you, as David laid. But it’s all about God’s timing and God’s plan. He brings it together for his purpose, for his glory and his way, and we just can’t thank Him and praise Him enough for all that he’s done with us throughout this. It’s taken about two years, which we tore down the old building to getting our CEO was almost exactly two years.
So it’s been a long journey. And Darryl said that was the easy part. Hey, building. This was the easy part. The hard part was he’s got picking columns.
I just had to repent over these columns one day. But as he said, it’s all custom made, custom fit for a metal building. And we just praise the Lord for it, guys, that all that worked so hard, that gave, that did everything. God bless you. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you. Let’s give them all a hand.
I told you all these groups, I know you’re hot. At this time, we want to have a ribbon cutting ceremony. I have asked all the children to come up here. No, I’ve got something already. Thank you, Darryl.
That’s why I need him so bad. We had this dedication plaque made up and it sort of tells the story of what took place. And Darryl was telling that, but I was just, in short, tell you. We were studying for me and Robin stayed here in the afternoons between Sunday morning, Sunday evening service, and I was studying back here, just on the path going down to the Baptistry. And then I was studying and praying and asking God to leave me and what to say and what to do.
It’s just like coming to my mind, we’re going to build a building. I said, really? Is that what you want us to do? If it is, will you tell others? I’m not going to say a word you tell others.
And then Darryl caught me one Sunday morning, said, Preacher coming out here, I want to talk to you. And we walked out right by where the wheelhouse was. And he says, what do you think about tearing this building down, building a new one? If I didn’t think he’d punched me in the mouth, I would have kissed him. It was just confirmation that God was in this from the very beginning.
And we shared our vision with others, and others caught the vision and brought support through many different ways. And through all that, God made it happen. So our plaque says, A vision of two, the contribution of many to provide a future for God’s ministry. We dedicate this building for the glory of God. May 22, 2023.
And we will hang this in the hallway in just a minute. So, Brother Bob, brother, thank you for being here. Dad, I want him to come pray, and then he’ll close us out. This part of it, we’ll do the ribbon ceremony. You can come in, walk around, ask questions, whatever you want to do, as long as you want.
And then we’re going to go into the fellowship hall and have barbecue. Best part of being a Baptist. All right. So, Brother Bobby, would you close us in prayer, please, sir? And congratulations to all of you for that which has been accomplished in the name of our Lord.
Amen. 1965, this church saw fit to call me as their pastor and ordained me to the Gospel minister. I shall ever be grateful to the people of that congregation at that time. Most of them are in the cemetery. We’re grateful for them.
And one other word. If you ever wonder about the work of the church and what it’s supposed to do and its effect upon the future, I want you to look at Darryl McCoy. And there are I’m sure there are others around here I just don’t see and probably don’t recognize them. Darryl was a preschooler when I was here. So we’re grateful for the Lord, for the work of his church and the people within his church who make it possible for the future generations to know Jesus as person.
Let’s pray together.
Heavenly Father, how grateful we are for this day of celebration. Thank you for the leadership of your spirit, the way in which you work in our lives, the way that you accomplish your work through your people and our Father, as we meet today, we’re mindful of the name Bethel. It means house of God. This is a place where people of all ages meet God, come to know Jesus as personal Lord and Savior. We thank you for those who have worked so very hard, for those who’ve given, for those who’ve led, for those who’ve provided in multitudes of ways.
Thank you and our father. We do pray Your blessings upon Brother Kenny, the deacons and leadership of this church and this precious congregation as they move ahead from this time to fulfill your purposes in this community. Bless this building and all who so use it for the generations to come, for we pray in Jesus name. Amen.
Now, if I could get our children and our deacons to all come together. We’ll have the ribbon cutting ceremony if you want to take pictures and get that together. Or get two or three deacons, two or three on each side of the column here.
Shirley couldn’t find any smaller ones. All right, guys, can y’all just get on both sides and lift him? Pull and pull it right, guys, don’t touch this. Very sharp. Surely you grab some Jacob right here.
Scissors and helpers. I’ll count out all three. We’re going to cut them. Okay? All ready?
One, two, three. Good job.
Thank you. Thank you all for coming. Go through and enjoy. Ask what got any questions. Thank you all for being here.
Everybody did help.
I’m going to walk you all through the building. For those who can’t be here with us, but you can see the crowd we have.
All right, for those who want to walk into the building with me, this is our warrior. There’s the plaque that we were just told that would be here.
We have chandelier.
We have a lady’s restroom.
We have a men’s restroom. Back up.
Back this way. We have two adult Sunday school classes.
If we continue down this hallway, we have the other adult Sunday school classroom.
We have storage rooms through here. This is the pastor study.
And we will eventually have this as a sound room. But for now, that overlooks the gymnasium. You’ll see in a moment, but eventually it will be a sound room.
We’ll continue this way to the other classrooms. This is the children’s wing that we’re coming up on.
We have children’s classroom. Number one is we have student classroom, child classroom number two.
And then we have our youth room.
This is our youth room. And they have their own chalkboard.
And of course, we have more storage in this room.
And then we’re going to go into the main area back here. This is our activity area. We have stairs. We also have the ramp down. It’s amazing.
We have another restroom down here, one bathroom. We have a kitchen area for any future fellowship time that we have together.
And there you have it. The grand tour of Bethel Baptist Church of Rocky Mount. New activity building, built to bring glory and honor to God in our community. Thank you for joining us online.