HARRISON – Pastor Charles Jeffries and his wife, Paula, will be leaving the Christian Center following the Sunday, March 21, service to start a new center in New Orleans.

Jeffries will preach his last sermon at the church at 10 a.m. Sunday, March 21. The community is invited to send off the pastor of seven years.

Christian Center was founded by the Jeffries with the vision of reaching out to the hurting, and helping them find a better life.

Part of Jeffries’ vision for Christian Center was that it would one day send someone out from the church to start other churches. To his surprise, Jeffries feels this is his new calling.

The Jeffries moved to the Oxford Hills area in April 1997 and began holding services in their newly-established church in the South Paris fire hall.

The congregation remained faithful despite difficult obstacles incurred in holding portable church services. Instruments had to be unloaded and loaded back into a large lock-box. Chairs had to be set up and taken down with each services. Signs were hung and removed, floors swept and paperwork carried back and forth.

After two years, the congregation moved into its own facility.

A young couple, Peter and Angela Dell’Erba, and their two daughters moved to Norway from Illinois. They had worked in Massachusetts previously with Jeffries in a church he pastored there. They felt a calling to move to the Oxford Hills and work at Christian Center.

Jeffries installed Dell’Erba as his associate pastor, and together with the congregation they worked in refurbishing and moving into their new location.

On March 9, the church voted in Dell’Erba as their next senior pastor.

Services are held at the center every Sunday at 10 a.m. an 6 p.m. for worship services at 7 Plains Road at the corner of Route 117 in Harrison.