Exciting Church for Our Lady

Before this blog went to Patheos, every October I ran a “Stick ‘Em Up!” campaign.

This was a plea for readers to donate to my work by hitting the “Donate” button and helping out your poor padre blogger.

Now, of course, I get sent checks every month for huge amounts from the people at Patheos (not really).

But I do receive an income from blogging and its paid for by the pesky ads we all have to put up with.

Therefore I do not feel that I can ask for donations from my readers. Fair’s fair. You put up with nauseating ads. In return, you aren’t asked to cough up the cash.

However, on a regular basis for the next three months I am going to be writing about church architecture, featuring guest bloggers about church architecture and sharing with you what we are trying to achieve in our little parish in the poor part of town here in Greenville, South Carolina.

I’m also going to ask you for donations.

Here’s where we stand. Our little parish of just about 550 families is planning to build the beautiful new church you see pictures here. We are building this church for just $5m. Can you believe it!?

We have raised $2.8m and we can afford to borrow about $850K. If we can raise just $650K we can move forward and break ground in the Spring. The Diocese has approved our financial plan and given approval to go ahead with construction drawings.

Here’s what we’re doing: our little parish has never had a proper church. For fifty years we’ve worshipped in a pre-fab warehouse type building. The existing building in which we worship will be renovated to provide a community center and early learning center. In the future I hope we’ll have a subsidized day care so some of the single moms who live in this poor part of town will be able to go back to work and know their kids are being looked after. We already have a weekly food pantry, and we recently bought a little house which will house offices for a social worker and community nurse.

Our church property is right on I-85–the major artery from Pennsylvania to Florida. In the lower church we’re going to have a place for Eucharistic Adoration and Shrine to the Divine Mercy. Wouldn’t it be great if eventually people who are traveling on the highway will be able to stop at our shrine for prayer, reconciliation and Adoration?

I’ll be sharing more pictures, ideas and thoughts on sacred architecture and what we are trying to do in the weeks to come, but for now you can see we are building a traditionally styled Catholic Church for modern 21C worship.

What thrills me about this project is that people see the pictures and LOVE what we’re doing. People have said, “It looks like a Catholic Church!”

Uh. That’s right. That was the idea. As such it will be a great witness here in the heart of the Bible Belt.

Will you help us with this project? If you go here you’ll see some more information and a PayPal button to make your donation. This blog has a daily readership of about 10,000 readers. What if everyone said to themselves, “That is one beautiful church! I can spare ten bucks.” We’d have $100,000 towards our target.

You get the idea.

If you can help GO HERE. If you would like to know more about specific donations and naming opportunities drop me a line at dlongenecker1@gmail.com