Grace Lighthouse Church moves indoors
Church leadership cuts the ribbon before the first indoor service. Photos source: Grace Lighthouse Church
Members gather inside for the first time.
The outside of the building.
Members file inside the new building.
Church leadership cuts the ribbon before the first indoor service. Photos source: Grace Lighthouse Church
Members gather inside for the first time.
The outside of the building.
Members file inside the new building.
After years of services held under a tent, the Grace Lighthouse Church has finally moved indoors.
The church celebrated its first celebration under its new roof at 2703 Cranberry Highway, Sunday, Nov. 2 bringing members inside for the first time since the pandemic. Pastor David Beguerie said it was "glorious," to finally have everyone together.
"We had a big theme on our bulletin board, ‘Glory to God,’ because it was such a long process," he said.
Known as "the church under the tent" the plans to build a physical location for the congregation have been in motion since 2015 when Beguerie became leader of the church. According to Beguerie, the Church purchased the cranberry highway property in October 2019 but the pandemic delayed building plans.
"We knew there was a bigger desire for us to be on the property," he said. "So we bought a 3,200 square foot tent and became known as the church under the tent. We had electricity installed, built a shed and did a total of 65 outside services."
The church purchased a modular building comprised of six, 60-foot sections and started construction in April 2023. With a large meeting space, three offices, bathrooms and a media room among many features, construction took almost 14 months.
Modular buildings are structures made from pre-fabricated pieces that are joined together on-site to form a complete building. Beguerie said the 125 people that showed filled the new space almost entirely.
"It was amazing, I can't describe it any better," he said. "We were pretty much filled. We weren't entirely full but we were almost at capacity."
Beguerie said the churchgoers raved about the building during the first services and that although the congregation will meet mostly inside from now on— it isn't the end for the "the church under the tent."
"We can have functions like weddings, memorials and multiple things that became useful to have the tent," he said. "Long term the majority of our services would be in the building but we still do have the capability to meet under the tent again for different things."
The Grace Lighthouse church holds worship services Sundays at 10 a.m.
