
DATE: Tuesday, September 2, 1997            TAG: 9709020115

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY CINDY CLAYTON, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:  126 lines

FIREMEN TAKING OVER CHURCH SANCTUARY TO BECOME TRAINING CENTER CONGREGATION HAS OUTGROWN ITS PRESENT SITE.

Inside the flat-topped building at the corner of Thole and Granby streets in Norfolk, the morning service progressed from prayer to joyful singing and clapping.

The rounded sanctuary seemed filled with light on the last Sunday before Labor Day weekend, as voices sang the words ``This Is the Day the Lord Has Made.''

But outside, the large, silvery cross once perched atop the building was gone, and only scratches and scars remained where letters once spelled out Tabernacle Church of Norfolk.

A new name will take its place when the building becomes the Norfolk Fire Department's Fire Training Center at the end of September.

Since January, the building has carried the dual identity of church and training center in progress. On Sundays, the church uses the 650-seat sanctuary for two morning services. During the week, contractors and church members have been converting the building into the new training center.

``We are very expectant about the new facility,'' said Inez Poole, a church member since 1958.

Under a deal between the city and the church, the congregation will keep using the sanctuary every Sunday until a new church building is completed in the summer of 1999.

The sale of the church building to the city has helped raise funds toward the $7 million required to build a new building two blocks away on 12 acres purchased from Winn Nursery.

In turn, the fire department is getting a 19,000-square-foot building that cost the same amount as a smaller building they were planning to build.

Norfolk firefighters will be trained at the new center and officials hope that it will be used to host state training seminars and the Tidewater Regional Fire Academy.

The new center will include:

An apparatus bay that will hold a fully equipped fire engine.

A 20-foot-by-40-foot library where firefighters/paramedics can study for recertification.

A small television production studio, shared by the Norfolk Fire and Police Departments, where training videos and Crime Line will be produced.

Classrooms, a kitchen, men's and women's locker rooms, and offices.

``It's an exciting time,'' said Norfolk Fire Training Capt. Don Brown. He said the new center will be a boost for the fire department, which formerly had no training center of its own.

``Firefighting is becoming a really technical business. It's not just running through doors like it used to be,'' Brown said.

``Firefighting is like the Army. . . . We have to constantly drill. And they've granted us a facility to meet those needs.''

That building, which had four classrooms but no fellowship hall, could no longer meet the needs of the nondenominational Christian church's 1,000-member congregation, said Ken Bryant, associate pastor.

``We were just very limited in our facilities,'' he said.

``The nurseries were cramped. And part of the reason why we're moving is for the educational areas. It's about equipping people for ministry, and of course, children are the forefront of that ministry.''

At first, church officials didn't seem to have a prayer in their campaign to persuade the city to convert their spiritual home into a fire department training center.

The city already had plans to build a smaller $1.2 million training center on a grassy vacant lot behind Fire Station 9, which is beside the church, Bryant said. The station is centrally located in the heart of the city and already has a brick training tower.

But Tabernacle's minister, Rich Hardison, had a vision. He and church members wanted to sell the 19,000-square-foot church building to the city instead.

At first, fire officials turned them down flat.

Still, church members didn't give up. They went ahead and solicited bids for the conversion work. When the bids came back at exactly half of what the city was planning to pay to build the smaller building, Hardison and others sold their plan to city officials.

The city purchased the building and property for $600,000 and paid the church an additional $600,000 for the renovation. Decisions about whether to hire contractors to do the work or use church volunteers for the tasks were left in the hands of church leadership.

``Every little step has been something that has been providentially worked out,'' Hardison said. ``The timing of this thing . . . in the beginning, the city wasn't interested. We had to sell our property, get our money out of it, yet stay in it.''

Since January, church members have been meeting at the building to knock down walls and build new ones. They have hung wallboard, painted, and cleaned up after roofers and contractors who installed wiring, masonry and plumbing. When the building is ready, church members will install the carpet.

``There will be a lot of TLC put into the building,'' Hardison said. ``I'm very proud of the congregation,'' he said.

Bill Murr, a member of the church since the late 1940s, leads a group of men ages 60 and over who volunteer to do most of the church's painting jobs. Although this job has been a little different, Murr said, the group's purpose has been the same. ``We're all Christians and we know that there's a reason to be here working,'' he said.

``We haven't turned down a job yet,'' said Nick Latsko, who has attended the church for more than 20 years. ``It would be ridiculous to let (the church) get bids on something that we can do.''

``The people of the church have really gotten involved,'' Bryant said. ``They believe this is God's wish for our church. We want to see our church be the hub of evangelistic outreach to the community.''

The church began in the 1930s in Lamberts Point as part of the Christian Missionary Alliance Church, a small denomination dedicated to developing people for missionary work. A decade later, the church moved to 25th Street.

In 1951, the church, led by John Dunlap, changed its name and moved to Thole and Granby streets.

In 1952, the church started Norfolk Christian Schools, which later became independent. Discovery Center, which includes the National Institute for Learning Disabilities, also was started under the church's auspices.

Since then, the church has spun off several other ministries and community churches in Hampton Roads, including the Triple-R Ranch in Chesapeake. < ILLUSTRATION: Photo

HUY NGUYEN/The Virginian-Pilot

Choir members sing during a Sunday service at Tabernacle Church of

Norfolk. The congregation plans to move in 1999 to a new location

two blocks from its present site at Granby and Thole streets. The

Fire Department is renovating the present church for a fire training

facility.

Color Photo

HUY NGUYEN/The Virginian-Pilot

Sunday worship, above, will be held in Tabernacle's present building

at Thole and Granby streets in Norfolk until the new church is built

two blocks away in 1999. The view at left shows churchgoers making

their way past some ongoing renovations.