At 6 p.m. on Thursday, June 18, the Advent Christian Church on Turner Street in Auburn will hold a barbecue to show off the improvements.

Volunteers restoring 115-year-old church
The mission is designed to attract new membership

By Terry Karkos

Staff Writer

AUBURN – Endangered by dwindling membership, the Advent Christian Church on Turner Street is undergoing an all-volunteer construction revival this week, thanks to faith, prayer and about $7,000 in donations.

On Saturday, six of 20 volunteers from Auburn, Dayton, Friendship, Oxford and Port Clyde worked under ever-warming blue skies, removing shingles from one side of the 66- by 2,700-foot roof. Others cleaned up the mess below and carried in several wheelbarrow loads of new shingles, roofing tar and paper.

“This is the first time that something like this has been done in Maine,” said the Rev. Greg Twitchell of Port Clyde. “Usually, churches are left on their own to take care of themselves, so, it’s kind of neat to have people coming from all over to help out.”

Volunteers on Saturday included lobstermen, pastors, a day-care owner, a college student and retirees.

“When I was advertising it for help and donations, I called it ‘Home Improvement – The Church Edition,'” Twitchell said. “We’ve got to get her done quick.”

From Saturday through June 20, volunteers will be re-roofing the church, ripping up carpeting inside the sanctuary to buff and apply polyurethane to maple flooring, applying vinyl to the front and back entrances, painting the sanctuary walls inside, and replacing doors, windows and light fixtures.

Twitchell is vice president of the Maine State Advent Christian Conference, which comprises 30 Maine Advent Christian churches.

Taking a break from working on the roof of the brown and white church in a thickly settled residential neighborhood, Twitchell said the Auburn mission was designed to bring renewal to a sister church that has been struggling.

At one time, the 115-year-old church had 300 members.

“It was a good, strong church, but over the years it’s dwindled in membership,” Twitchell said. “About a year ago, it had just a dozen mostly retired people.”

He credited Lora Lee Bowden, who took over as pastor about 18 months ago, with starting an outreach program to children and growing membership to an average of 25 per week.

“This church was going to have to close when I came here a year and a half ago, due to a lack of people,” Bowden said Friday.

With little money and an urgent need to restore the building, trustees appealed to the conference for help.

“We can’t get government funds because of the separation of church and state,” Bowden said.

The conference came through, raising nearly $7,000 in two months from Advent Christian churches statewide, Twitchell said.

Money was still coming in on Saturday. A man sitting near Twitchell in the kitchen reached into his pocket and gave $200 to the effort.

In addition to the more labor-intensive jobs, Twitchell said two women from Presque Isle were coming down this week to paint murals in the children’s classrooms downstairs. Two men from New Brunswick, Canada, will also join the work force, which will swell to 35 to 40 people this week. Workers are staying at the Advent Christian campground in Mechanic Falls.

Advent Christian churches are evangelical, Twitchell said. “We’re not that much different than the Baptists. It’s the same branch.”

At 6 p.m. on Thursday, June 18, the church will hold a barbecue and show off the improvements.

“This is great,” church trustee John Bernard of Lewiston said, taking a break from lugging roofing materials in from the parking lot. “It wouldn’t even be possible to do all this work without this help.”

One of two lead carpenters in the project, Chester Curtis of the Oxford Advent Christian church, said he had done construction missions in the country of Mexico and he believes there are plenty of similar missions to complete in the United States.

“The major thing is, we’re doing this for the Lord,” Curtis said. “That’s the reason we’re here.”

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