By June 1, the people of Belton First Church of the Nazarene will have a new church home at 1701 Sparta Road in Belton.
The move is cause to celebrate, said Pastor Tommy Davis, because for eight years, he’s been preaching in the Belton Middle School cafeteria.
“It’ll be wonderful to move in,” Davis said. “The new church is multi-purpose. It won’t just be a place to worship and have Bible studies.”
With a room that can double as worship hall and gymnasium, the facility will also be a place for youth to enjoy their routine games of basketball and volleyball. Large fellowship events will be able to take place there too, the pastor said.
The church building will also feature 12 classrooms and a smaller hall for small-group studies.
“We’ve got 12.8 acres of property out there,” Davis said, thankful for the room his church has to grow.
Celebrating the move
June 1 is Transition Sunday for Belton First Church of the Nazarene.
Congregation members will walk from Belton Middle School to the new church building on Sparta Road, symbolizing a new chapter of church history.
An open house is set for 1-4 p.m. June 15, following a 10 a.m. celebration service.
The new church won’t be dedicated until Aug. 24, the date of the church’s 91st anniversary.
“We wanted to be able to celebrate them both,” Davis said.
The history
Belton First Church of the Nazarene was established in 1917 in Armstrong, a farming community near Salado Creek. Services took place in the Armstrong Schoolhouse.
In 1920, the church relocated to the Sulphur Springs Schoolhouse after it consolidated with the Armstrong school.
The church stayed there until 1940 when church services started taking place at house on the corner of Eighth Avenue and North Pearl Street in Belton. That house was demolished a few years later, but it provided the church with the material to construct a church building in the same location.
The Nazarene church remained on Pearl Street until 2000, the year of the church’s 60th anniversary. By then, the congregation had outgrew the space that was available, so church members opted to purchase a new set of land on Sparta Road in Belton.
Construction of the church on the Sparta site started in 2002, the year the Nazarene church sold its Pearl Street property to the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor. Services started taking place in the Belton Middle School cafeteria late that year.
UMHB uses the old Nazarene church on North Pearl Street as its Student Ministries Building.
--tlunsford@temple-telegram.com
