Church remodel complete featuring stained-glass images

Church remodel complete featuring stained-glass images

BY JEFF B. FLINN Managing Editor

A two-year renovation project is complete at Messiah Lutheran Church and congregation members will get a first look today at their remodeled sanctuary.

Among the most notable features are 11 floor-to-ceiling stained-glass windows, five on each side of the sanctuary and one behind the altar.

“This Sunday is our first Sunday in the sanctuary, which is a complete remodel,” said Messiah member Kathy Bibb. “The stained glass was installed last week, and they are more beautiful than I expected.”

Planning started two years ago, she said, with Joeris General Contractors chosen to do the rebuild. Blake Lavender is the special project group manager for Joeris and oversaw the project, working with Steve Luchese, architect with Ziegler Cooper Architects.

“Steve is the one who suggested our stained-glass artist from Baton Rouge, Steve Wilson,” Bibb said. “He flew here from Baton Rouge and met with us. He has probably the most creative design company right now.”

The church will have a dedication ceremony at 3 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 8 where it will officially unveil the remodel, complete with new pews, new lectern, the stained-glass windows, new AV equipment and all new woodwork.

“Behind the altar, that stained glass was not there. There was no window there,” she said. “They knocked a hole in the wall in order to install that glass.”

Every window image coordinates with a chosen “I Am” --- I am the bread of life; I am the light of the world; I am the way, the truth and the life; I am the vine; etc.

Each of the windows will have a plate at its base that lists the “I Am,” the corresponding Bible verse, and the congregation member who donated funding for the plaque as a memorial to someone that they lost.

Bibb joined Messiah shortly after the church opened in its current location on Dietz Elkhorn Road in 1995. The congregation, under interim Pastor Richard Lofgren, met in the church’s family life center in an adjacent building, while the sanctuary was being remodeled.