Oklahoma Pentecostal Church Built in 30 Hours With Help of 300 Volunteers
An Oklahoma-based Pentecostal congregation had their church built for them over the weekend after the "Church in a Day" (CIAD) program gathered over 300 volunteers to help build a worship site that was ready for use by Sunday morning.
Landmark United Pentecostal Church in Yukon, Okla., is a growing church that was in need of a larger space than what they were in. Helpers from across the state were on site at 6:00 am last Friday and worked for about 30 hours to complete the building while equipping it with a fully functioning sound system, heated baptistery, Sunday school rooms, a fellowship hall and a carpeted sanctuary.
"It's really no less than a miracle to me when people come together and they really bind together and they try to find their part in a project such as this," said Pastor Chris Moore, reports Oklahoma City-based KFOR-TV.
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The Church in a Day program is part of the North American Missions (NAM) ministry that builds churches in several cities around the country for congregations that are eligible for assistance, and usually all projects are built within a 30-hour time frame in rain or shine.
"Most of our CIAD projects are for pioneer pastors who go into an unchurched city and dig a work from nothing. Most pastors who receive a CIAD, are men and women who have been in their city for less than 10 years," said Terry Long, the national coordinator for Church in a Day, to The Christian Post..
He added, "They have purchased property and have secured enough funds to prep their site and get all of the preliminary site work taken care of. The average congregation receiving a CIAD is more than 25 congregants, and less than 100. Typically the auditorium is designed to seat 100 to 125."
Typically CIAD builds the churches based on a prototype building established by NAM that is about 2,900 square feet of functional space. However, municipality codes required the project for Landmark United Pentecostal Church to be built larger than the standard building.
According to Long, manpower is the force behind CIAD.
"An organized effort from NAM directors creates a team of construction workers in that district. This team typically consists of 350 laborers, set in skill sets to accomplish small tasks that equate to a church being built in a day," he said.
Long says the program began in 1990 in Arkansas when a small church was in "desperate" need of a building. At the time, CIAD was envisioned by a pastor as a program in which men and women who had trade skills could come together and build a church in a weekend for a congregation in need.
Since then, over 100 projects have been completed. Within less than two years alone, the program has benefited six additional churches in Ohio, Arkansas, New Jersey, Iowa, Texas and Indiana.
