St. Catherine’s under renovation while fundraising for new sanctuary

St. Catherine’s Episcopal Church, located on Shelby County 39 in Chelsea, is growing rapidly, partly due to an influx of young families, according to the Rev. Eric Mancil, the church’s rector. “It’s an exciting time for our parish,” he said.

However, with growth comes the need for bigger, better facilities.

St. Catherine’s, formed in 2007, has long outgrown its current building — the old K-Springs Church of God, a small 1930s-vintage, wood-frame structure the congregation has rented for more than 10 years. The church is continuing to raise money to build a new sanctuary on a 20-acre site it owns at Shelby County 39 and King’s Home Drive, not far from its current location.

But St. Catherine’s has also recently taken an intermediate step that allows the church to move more quickly to that new site and give it some of the additional space it needs.

In October 2018, Asbury United Methodist donated two modular buildings to St. Catherine’s, both of which have been installed on the church’s property, according to Mancil.

“The modular buildings will enable us to go ahead and move to our permanent location without the pressure of having to raise the funds necessary to build our new building,” Mancil said.

The move also gives the church more time to raise money for the new sanctuary, according to Mancil. At press time, the church’s renovation of the modular buildings was underway, and the congregation hoped to move in by the end of May, according to Mancil. 

The congregation is still using its old wood-frame church for worship services. With the modular buildings, St. Catherine’s will have room for a worship space, fellowship area, nursery, classrooms for children and adults, offices and storage space for its various ministries.

St. Catherine’s kicked off its “Growing in Christ” capital campaign in January 2018 with a goal of $1.2 million and announced the results in March 2018. 

At that point, the church had raised $580,000 in contributions and three-year pledges — well short of its goal. But the church is still taking contributions and “will be doing so over the next couple of years,” Mancil said.

During the campaign, most donors pledged to make contributions to the building fund over a three-year period, according to Mancil. The fundraising effort got a big boost in December. The Episcopal Diocese of Alabama announced it would give St. Catherine’s a $250,000 grant to assist in building the new sanctuary, Mancil said. 

“This was a complete surprise to us,” Cooke said. “We are so thankful.”

The church originally projected the cost of the new sanctuary to be $1.5 million, according to Mancil.

“However, over the past several months, we’ve done a lot of the infrastructure work ourselves, which means the overall cost of the new building project should be considerably less than what we originally thought,” he said.

The plans for the new sanctuary, done by CTSM Architects, call for a capacity of 120 worshipers, expandable to 200.

While the church family looks forward to having a brand-new sanctuary, it is “very excited” about the modular buildings,Mancil said.

“I think the move will give the parish a sense of accomplishment and motivate them to continue working toward our ultimate goal, which is to build a permanent structure,” Mancil said.“It will also better equip the parish to minister to the needs of the community and the world, which is what we are called to do as followers of Jesus.”

St. Catherine’s has an extensive community outreach, which includes the Beans and Rice Pantry, The Bread Ministry and the Chelsea Community Garden.

The St. Catherine’s parishioners are “committed to social justice” and feel a call to “love and serve those on the margins of society,” Mancil told 280 Living in 2018.

For more information, go to stcatherinesal.com.