Archive: Around Town

The intermittent mid-morning rain showers on June 4th had absolutely no effect of dampening the enthusiasm to break ground for Lansing’s newest house of worship adjacent to the Fellowship Hall of All Saints Roman Catholic Church, 347 Ridge Road.

A sanctuary overflowing with parishioners spilled out onto the parking lot after the 10 o’clock service, to be joined by even more members, neighbors, invited guests, community members and representatives of the press who wanted to join in the joyful ceremony of breaking ground for their new church. The “old” building, erected in the 1930’s, will remain standing and continue to serve the congregation in various ways.

The Master of Ceremonies, All Saints member Jerry Hass, kept the momentum of the ceremony going through the introductions of members of the fund raising committee, the contractors, architects and the singing of two wonderfully appropriate songs. Accompanied by a single guitar, the collective voices soared through “Sing a New Church” and “City of God”.

After prayers and the sprinkling of Holy Water, three shovels of various sizes were used for the actual moving of dirt, done first by the Priest, then by nuns who had formerly served at All Saints, other adults and finally, the youngsters who had waited so anxiously for the moment that they could have at it. More than one adult had to wait patiently, or not, occasionally moving a child aside, “Because I want to dig too! “

One wondered if, perhaps, this congregation would have had the foundation dug by dark had they not been called away to lunch being served in the Fellowship Hall.

Rev. Scott M. Kubinski, Priest Administrator of
All Saints Roman Catholic Church,
sprinkles holy water toward the marked off site of
Lansing's newest house of worship.

Overlooking a meadow filled with wildflowers and waving grasses, bordered by trees, the new sanctuary will initially have enough seating to double the capacity in the present sanctuary. This congregation expects to keep growing, so they have built expansion plans into certain aspects of the new building. For instances, they will add more pews, when needed, at an angle to the ones directly in front of the new alter.

All Saints member and Fund Raising Chair Susan Brock addressed the crowd to acknowledge the work that had gone into raising the funds to bring the project to the point of ground breaking, then spoke of what else “they - meaning we” dreamed of achieving, and the fund raising that would be necessary to bring about the completion of the dream. The applause and cheers that greeted her comments indicate a congregation eager to finish the task.

This is only one of the congregations in the Lansing area that is temporarily solving its over-crowded seating situation by holding two separate worship services each Sunday. The building of this new church on a beautiful hill top site will alleviate crowding and provide space to fill additional needs of this denomination. Both the Master of Ceremonies and Priest spoke proudly of the tremendous growth of this congregation over the past five years.

In fact, the Lansing Star Worship Column often hears of how Lansing goes against the norm in at least one statistic: Its churches are growing!

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