Covenant News

Salina (KS) Church Celebrates New Building

SALINA, KS (June 15, 2004) - Midwest Conference Supt. Kenneth Carlson preached the morning sermon during worship services as First Covenant Church celebrated its new 44,000-square-foot building last Sunday.

The 126-year-old church held its first worship service in the new facility on May 2, said senior pastor Dan Pietrzyk. An open house for the community of Salina is scheduled for September.

Sunday activities included placement of a time capsule and a barbecue following the morning worship services. Carlson preached from I Peter 2:1-10 on the theme "The Role of Community in Continuing the Mission." He suggested the new facility will allow the church to initiate additional efforts to reach its community for Christ. He challenged the congregation to become missionaries to Salina, a city of 47,000 inhabitants in central Kansas.

First Covenant's building project includes a sanctuary seating 650 people and a large parking lot situated on 34 acres of property. Project cost is $6.4 million for the land and building. A local bank provided financing - the church raised $4 million in pledges and gifts and also sold its current building. First Covenant Church held a groundbreaking service two years ago.

First Covenant Church has an average worship attendance of around 900, said Pietrzyk, who is in his 10th year of ministry at the church. The church recently sent a mission team to Jamaica with Merge Ministries and the congregation is sending a team to Mexico with a Merge Ministries-sponsored group later this month. The church has also called a Hispanic church planter, Dario Vasquez, to reach a growing Hispanic community in Salina.

For more information about the church and its ministries, call 785-823-3792.

(Editor's note: Senior pastor Dan Pietrzyk was recently named by the Evangelical Covenant Church (ECC) Department of the Ordered Ministry to direct its Sustaining Pastoral Excellence (SPE) program. To read more about that development, please see Pastoral Excellence Program.)

Printable version of this page.