METHODIST CHURCH PREPARES TO TAKE OVER OLD JACKSON CITY HALL

JACKSON -- Moving day is tentatively scheduled for June 24 as New McKendree United Methodist Church gets ready to take possession of the old city hall building.

The church paid $206,000 for the building at a public auction in January. Church officials have had their eyes on the city hall property, which adjoins the church, for some time.

Contractors have been renovating the building -- renamed Cox Memorial Hall -- to make room for church administrative offices, a banquet room and other activity areas, said New McKendree Pastor Scott Lohse.

"It's shaping up real nicely," Lohse said. "We're planning on having a ribbon-cutting and consecration on the last Sunday of the month."

The church's administrative offices will be moved to the first floor of the old city hall building, Lohse said.

"The real issue for getting the building was the space it's going to free up at our old building," he said.

The church's growing congregation meant space was getting tight in the church building, he said.

Moving the administrative offices will free up enough space to allow three new adult Sunday School classes, Lohse said.

The additional space will also allow New McKendree to offer several new programs, he said.

Volunteers are being gathered to head up "some sort of after-school, coffee house ministry for teen-agers" that will operate in Cox Memorial Hall, Lohse said. "That's really an ideal location for us, right next to the high school."

The church's food pantry will also move next door, he said, and will expand.

A banquet room with space for 300 people is also in the works for the second floor of Cox Memorial Hall, Lohse said.

The church is also planning to add a crisis hotline for its new Stephen Ministry program, in which lay counselors work with congregation members on a variety of issues.

Cape County Transit Service has also rented space from the church in the old city hall building, he said.

Cox Memorial Hall is only the latest phase in New McKendree's expansion plans, Lohse said.

He said congregation members had been discussing moving to a new location "because we're kind of landlocked" at the current site on High Street in downtown Jackson.

But by the year 2000, the church hopes to break ground on a new recreational/auditorium building between the existing church and Cox Memorial Hall, Lohse said.

Cox Memorial Hall was named in honor of John Cox, a long-time member of the congregation who established a trust in the church's name. The trust has been used for acquiring property to expand church services, Lohse said.