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	St. Davids's rector, the Rev. Don Davidson, chats with parishioners sitting in overflow seating during the standing-room-only first service back on the parish's property on Dec. 16. The parish's building was destroyed by arson fire on Nov. 10, 2006. --Photos by Melodie Woerman

St. David's returns home

By Melodie Woerman
Editor, The Harvest

A journey of 13 months through four locations finally brought the people of St. David’s, Topeka, to the place they’ve wanted to be all along.

Home.

The congregation once again is able to conduct services on its own property in southwest Topeka, in worship space that had been the parish hall before the Nov. 10, 2006, arson fire that destroyed the church.

Services resumed there the weekend of Dec. 15-16 after extensive renovations.

New red doors, festooned with evergreen wreaths, greeted worshipers for the 10:30 a.m. service. Once inside, there were hugs, smiles and tears among parishioners. Over and over people greeted one another with a single phrase: “Welcome home!”

The 144 seats quickly filled, sending another 70 people into an adjacent room. No one seemed to mind the inconvenience.

The return home was universally applauded. Anne Hesse said, “We are thrilled. Who knew that pulling into your own parking lot would make you so happy.”

Bill Sowers and other choir members got a sneak preview of the space during Thursday choir practice. He welcomed the homecoming, too. “The building has changed, but the spirit is still here,” he said.

Mike Homan said returning to St. David’s property gave him chills. “You just can’t describe it,” he said. “It’s a great feeling.” His wife, Marilyn, agreed. “It feels so good,” she said. “It’s good to see a cross again,” something the congregation was asked to forgo during the months it worshiped at the Jewish Temple Beth Shalom.

The Rev. Don Davidson, the parish’s rector, told his congregation that he “almost cried” when someone called him this week to come to the church just to unlock the building.

Bishop Dean Wolfe, who was making his annual visitation to the parish, beamed as he told his flock, “What a great day. Our God is good.”

He noted that in his travels around the diocese, he frequently is asked how things are going at St. David’s in their recovery from the fire. “I have to say to them, ‘Things are going really well,’” he said.

An indication of that were the nine people Bishop Wolfe confirmed during the service, along with one person received and another who reaffirmed her baptismal vows. Confirmands ranged in age from 13 to 86.

Numbers were strong at other services that weekend, too. The 8 a.m. service had an attendance of 32, and 25 people came to the 5 p.m. service on Saturday.

Crepe paper stands in for a door in one of the Sunday school classrooms in St. David's old parish hall.

Usable, if tight, space

The new rectangular worship space has been configured wide and shallow rather than narrow and long to allow people to see one another. Red upholstered chairs, complete with kneelers, had been at St. Philip’s, Topeka, before that church closed in mid-November. They are on loan to St. David’s by the diocese.

Church member Norm Hemmer made a new altar table that is surrounded by familiar torches and a parish banner that all survived the fire.

On the homecoming Sunday, two large floral arrangements were placed on the floor in front of the altar, gifts from Grace Cathedral in downtown Topeka.

The rest of the space that wasn’t gutted by the fire but was badly damaged by smoke also has been remodeled.

The kitchen area next to the old parish hall now houses mechanical systems, including telephone boxes, computer cables and heating and cooling controls.

The social room, which served as overflow seating Dec. 16, used to be part of the parish office. The old rector’s office now is the choir room, and nurseries are carved out of space wherever it could be found.

The basement, which before the fire contained half a dozen tiny, dark classrooms, now is one large room for use by parish youth. It has wireless Internet access, a full-service coffee bar and space for recreation.

It’s one of the few remodeled areas that will remain untouched as the parish undertakes a building campaign in 2008.

It was important to give parish young people a stable space, said senior warden Margaret Telthorst. Davidson agreed. “Our youth aren’t the future, they are the present,” he said. “We wanted their space to be finished quickly.”

Elementary students have classrooms set up in a portion of the building that doesn’t meet building codes for permanent occupancy and will have to be torn down once rebuilding begins, Telthorst said.

Classroom entrances sported crepe paper streamers instead of doors, and a crisscross design of crepe paper stood in for a wall separating the older from the younger students.

Davidson said he truly welcomes this new worship space, but building codes and specification requirements stopped some changes the parish would have liked.

“We will have more freedom in the new building,” he said.

The parish Architecture Committee has developed a working floor plan for that new building. It calls for a new parish hall and classrooms to be built on the footprint of the old church on the east side of the property, with a new worship space built on the current parking lot to the west. Adjacent vacant land will become a new parking lot.

The newly remodeled worship space then will undergo another transformation, this time into offices.

Stops along the way

The St. David’s congregation primarily has worshipped in four locations since November 2006 — along with one Sunday right after the fire at neighboring Faith Lutheran.

The Saturday 5 p.m. service has been in Grace Cathedral’s chapel all along. Most Sunday mornings were spent at Temple Beth Shalom, with some Sundays also at the Masonic Center of Topeka and at the Big Shelter House at Gage Park.

Having to pack up everything it takes for worship every week has been a tremendous challenge, Telthorst said. “Worship on the move,” she noted, requires lots of extra work for lots of people.

Davidson agreed. He said he welcomed the day “when we no longer have to carry everything in, and when the altar isn’t a fold-out table.”

But the challenge of being constantly on the move has had its benefits, leaders say. “We ‘get’ that the church isn’t the building,” Davidson said. “Without the stability that a building affords, we were forced to be the church no matter where we were.”

Telthorst said the congregation has become much more adaptable than she thought possible, a plus that will continue to help them as they begin a building effort.

It will take people a while to figure out where everything is in the new space. Parents found nurseries by following handwritten signs on colored paper that pointed the way.

Verger Marcia Ransom said having the first service be such a big one was an extra challenge. “We sure started with the full monty, with all the bells and whistles,” she said. Making the available space work for parish liturgies will challenge participants for a while until a new routine gets established, she said.

Bishop Wolfe noted that while the parish has reached a milestone in its return home, work — physical as well as emotional — remains to be done.

“There is some pain that still needs to be healed,” he said. “It will take time. It can’t be rushed. It will take time to get used to being in a new space. But the time you spend will be worth it.”

On the first Sunday home, Telthorst couldn’t agree more. “It will be wonderful to not be packing up and wondering where things are,” she said.

She then paused to give directions and answer questions as people began to arrive. “Well, we’re still a little bit wondering where things are,” she said with a shrug and a smile.