“If I could leap for joy gracefully, I’d leap,” said Pastor Gene Maynard. “This church has been here 12 years and we’ve never really had our own space. It is a real sense of joy.”
Bayside Auburn’s new Nevada Street facility, which they’re leasing with an option to buy, consists of a worship center, and a ministry center, which will be used for classrooms and offices. The church has been leasing office space in a third building on the campus, which they hope to phase out of in the next few months.
The worship center can seat 400, and outdoor patios are being equipped with monitors and sound to accommodate those who either can’t fit into the building or would prefer to participate in a service from a distance, Maynard said. More than 650 members attend Sunday services on average, so the church will now hold two worship services each Sunday.
The former Sonrise Church took the Bayside name last summer. It was around that time that church leaders found the Nevada Street location, Maynard said. A capital campaign began in the fall of 2008. When all was said and done, congregation members pledged nearly $1 million, “which is amazing,” Maynard said
“I’m blown away,” he said.
Work is in no way done, but the worship center will be ready by Sunday’s services, Maynard said.
“We have a lot of pieces to finish,” he said. “There’s certainly going to be a lot of cleaning between now and the 26th.”
Maynard hopes to have the worship center complete by September, and the ministry center complete by Christmas. The church celebrates its official grand opening on Sept. 27.
Maynard said everyone in the congregation is excited about the move.
“You can just feel the enthusiasm beginning to bubble up at church,” he said. “We finally have a space that reflects the personality of the church. At the end of the day it’s just brick and mortar but it does reflect the spirit we’re about.”
Dave Shafer, who’s on the church’s leadership team, has been in the congregation since 2001.
Shafer said having a church of its own means a lot to Bayside.
“We didn’t have a seven-day-a-week facility, and now we will,” he said. “We are now better equipped to facilitate the many ministries of this church in an efficient way. It’s just incredible. We think God’s really going to bless what we’re doing
