Community Church of Harrison City will hold belated open house for renovations, additions

In the coming weeks, Pastor Seth McPherson will baptize the youngest child of a local family at Community Church of Harrison City in the same font where the family’s eldest child was baptized a few short years ago.

But what a difference a little time can make.

“Here’s where that baptismal font used to be,” said McPherson, indicating a spot on the floor that is now the staging area in front of a climbing wall.

Officials from Community Church on Route 130 in Penn Township were near completion on a roughly $8 million renovation and addition to the church complex when the covid-19 pandemic hit.

“They had about four months in the building with the new work done, and then everything shut down,” said McPherson, who came to Community Church in May 2020.

Since then, it’s been a lot of virtual services and heavily socially distanced in-person worship. But the renovation and additions also helped in that regard, McPherson said.

“We went from a medium-­sized kind of typical sanctuary to one that’ll hold about 800,” He said. “That, frankly, was really helpful during covid, with lower numbers of people and the ability to do social distancing.”

On Aug. 29, McPherson and the Community Church staff will host an open house to showcase the new parts of the building and allow longtime parishioners to reacquaint themselves with the church.

“The idea for the open house really came from our laity,” said McPherson, who grew up in the Brookville area and came to Community Church after serving as pastor in a Bethel Park church. “They wanted to remind the community that we’re here and we’re ready to have events.”

That is an understatement: with a towering glass facade, a new cafe and mezzanine area, a new and expanded sanctuary, a kids’ worship room and other amenities, McPherson said the idea was to create a place with more to offer than worship services and a weekly Bible study.

“Parents dropping their kids off at preschool can sit down and enjoy a coffee from the cafe, and we also have our more-informal Saturday-night service in the cafe,” he said. “We really wanted it to be active all week long.”

The open house will include building tours, activities and games, a ministry fair, barbecue, kids’ games and more.

The impetus for the renovation was a growing congregation, something McPherson said he hopes continues now that more people are returning to a more-public life.

“The church had a vision to expand physically,” he said. “And they were growing enough at that point, that it was necessary.”

The open house will run from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Aug. 29 at the church, 3487 Route 130.

For more information, see CommunityUMchurch.com.