INDEPENDENCE, Mo. – Last July, the sanctuary at Englewood Church was in some serious trouble – the roof was literally on fire.
“When we got here the church had been burning for four or five hours,” said Englewood Pastor Doug Reed. “There really wasn’t a lot of fire damage except for in the ceiling and in the roof. But, the smoke and water damage was pretty extensive.”
Reed said a lightning strike sparked a fire between the church’s roof and ceiling. The damage destroyed the inside, forcing the church to relocate for several months while crews stripped the interior and built a new one from scratch.
“When it was all said and done, about a $600,000 to $700,000 remodel happened on the property in the last six months,” said Reed.
Insurance paid for a good chunk of it. The rest came from donations of money and time.
“We did a lot of painting; a lot of cleaning; a lot of scraping. All in all, it’s been an amazing turn around,” said Andy Lind, a member of the congregation.
He said he and his wife Ashley, along with other volunteers worked tirelessly to renovate the church.
“You never really knew what it was going to look like, but that last day when we were picking everything up and vacuuming everything, we were looking and think ‘this is going to be the best thing that happened. This is going to change everything,’ said Ashley Lind.
While the damage was main contained to the sanctuary, Englewood decided to update its entire interior to appeal to the congregation’s younger members. The pastor said that investment appears to be paying off.
“It was a hard time, but it was also a really encouraging time to realize this building wasn’t the church, that the people were the church,” said the pastor.
They hope that message makes its way to the congregation of Westport Presbyterian in Kansas City – that something beautiful can come from a pile of rubble.
When churches in Joplin heard about Englewood’s fire, they pitched in to help, even though they were already dealing with the post-tornado destruction. Now Englewood hopes to pay it forward by helping Westport Presbyterian rebuild.
