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MINNVILLE, OREGON
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 2000

Lafayette church to dedicate new building

By LOUISE ROSE Of the News-Register The Lafayette Community Church will hold a “dedica- tion celebration” during its 10 a.m. worship service Sunday.
The church will be holding the ser- vice in its new building at 365 Third St. Sunday school at 9 a.m. for all ages precedes the worship service.
The church also will host a free, public concert by Keith Foster of Port- land at 5 p.m. Sun- day. Foster’s music includes a mix of traditional and con- temporary Christian songs.

Tom Ballard/News-Register
Sally Peterson and the Rev. Jim Peterson will take part Sunday in dedicating the new sanctuary of the Lafayette Community Church at 365 Third St., Lafayette. They started the church on Easter Sunday 1999, with support from the Bethel Baptist Church, McMinnville.
The Rev. Jim Peterson held the church’s first worship service on Easter Sunday of 1999 in the Lafayette Community Center. Services later were moved to Wascher Elementary School. The congregation continued to meet in the school until one of its number, Don Leard, offered to build a structure on land he owns and lease it to the church. Peterson said he’s grateful for the new facility, which will seat up to 200. “It’s great to have a place where we can leave the chairs and equipment up, not have to take it all down and put it away every week.”
The church is a daughter church of McMinnville’s Bethel Baptist, said Peterson, who served on the pas- toral staff there for 11 years. “We felt the growing population in Lafayette could support another church, not one of a specific denomination, but a community church that would reach people of all denominations,” he said.  Average weekly attendance is 125. The church also operates a soup kitchen from 4 to 6 p.m. each Tuesday in the Lafayette community center, 133 Adams St. Peterson said his wife, Sally, puts in a lot of hours at the church, too. She directs the children’s choir, leads women’s ministries and does secretarial work.  he church staff also includes a youth pastor and an adult choir leader. For more information, call the church at 503-864-4864.