Our old church. Very humble but it served us well for 12 years. A nearly windowless, cinder block built, ex-utility pay station. Note the new church to right. We had reserved that spot on the corner for the new church for years.
The new church. Having that much space took some getting used to.
Much of our congregation is gathered in front of the arbor in our garden. The arbor is a memorial to a much beloved young woman who was tragically killed in an automobile accident.
Just so you know what we are talking about, this is the arbor. While the rest of the building lot looked like the moon, this was a cool green island for us and for the builders.
The garden before construction. Looking across US Highway 101 (running right to left) and Commercial Street. You can barely see our present church behind the red car, and the mural of Saint Francis on the wall facing the garden.
The Beginning. The official groundbreaking procession. Rose our youngest acolyte could barely hold the cross with Betsy our total ministry priest assisting her. Jerry Lamb our beloved and now retired bishop. Debbie Royals a special friend and priest who said a Native American ceremony. Barry Beisner our awesome current bishop holding the shovel. Mary Fisher our beloved retired priest. Harry Allagree our regional missioner. The rest of the congregation and many well wishers are following.
You begin a church with a strong base. Note the Saint Francis mural and our church in the background.
The skeleton of the church is well underwway. This will be what is called "straw bale infill", the straw bales do not support the church, but are filled in later, much like other insulation is added later. The difference is that the straw bales are strong and rigid themselves, adding to the structural strength of the walls, as well as much of the siding both inside and out.
One of the gable end walls of the church with Saint Francis appearing to hold it all up with a smile. This mural was painted years ago by a member of our congregation, Malaki Schindel, when he was only 18. He is an amazing artist and has gone on to paint a number of murals throughout the county since then.
Tom Allen and his crew are wonderful people and incredible craftsmen. Ken who owns Hava Java across the street asked me at this point, "Bill, I have been watching these builders. They always measure twice, sometimes three times. Are they really that good or are they afraid of the boss? I told Tom and he laughed, "Maybe both" I have never experienced a happier crew considering their work. They were so good to us. they decided to build the roof trusses themselves. Must have weighed a ton each. Here they are about to raise them. It was tricky - notice how one end is through the doorway.
That's Tom with the smile (which is how he usually looks).
They also welded all the heavy brackets. They knew how behind budget we were, so they performed many services for us like this when they certainly didn't have to. There are the brackets that hold up the roof beams, and I am sure they also wanted to be sure that the brackets were done well.
A view through the remains of the garden at the construction. We hope to reclaim parts of the old driveway so that the net loss to the garden will be minimized.
We have a whole seperate photo essay about the straw bale walls, and they are very green. They are excellent insulation at R-60. They are also superb sound insulation, and when you are right on the busiest corner in Willits (right on US 101) then this is very important. Of course this is a natural product that there is a surplus of - in this case it is rice straw from the valley. The high silica content in rice straw make it the least likely straw to mold or break down.
We originally were going to plaster the walls with mud, which is organic but requires constant upkeep - not waterproof, flakes and slowly powders - not too good for a very downtown building! What we ended up doing was a cement/lime mixture that is quite strong and ends up very hypoallergenic. It is water resistant but breathes well - that is, water vapor can escape if need be.
We put a double coat of this European polymer over the walls for waterproofing, although it also can breathe. Since we are right on the Mayacama fault, we will have to expect some cracks in the walls due to earthquakes. It has a 40 year track record for durability and color fastness - the wall color is embedded in this polymer so we never have to paint the walls again! All in all pretty green.
The whole roof for the center portion of the church was terribly late in coming. We had no choice but to go ahead with the straw bale walls. So the builders covered the center roof with poly tarps. It caused a lot of anxiety. Had a windy storm come the light tarps would probably have been torn apart. But with the Holy Spirit's help the rain that came in the interim had no significant wind attached.
I must say those tarps were beautiful! So translucent and slightly rippling in in the wind. Lovely while they were up.
The reason the sanctuary roof was delayed is because we employed a radically new type of roof, quite green in a strange way. The roof is made up of 7" of styrofoam sandwiched between two pieces of plywood. They are called SIPPs and have an excellent weight-to-strength ratio, are fairly cheap, and provide R-40 insulation. We could not have built a conventional roof and insulated it this well for anywhere near the same money.
SIPPs are quite light but span the 25-30 foot spaces between our beams. Two men with some difficulty could lift one of those huge sections. While styrofoam doesn't seem to be "green" we can never recycle enough of it, so why not get some mileage out of it?
SIPPs are pretty easy to attach as well. They kind of dovetail into each other, and then are simply nailed to the beam. The installers were able to use a nail gun a lot to attach them.
So the SIPPs were up but they had to be protected against the rain that was coming. Tom used up one of his professional favors to get this husband/wife team from Potter Valley to give up their first weekend "off" in months to cover our roof. I suppose miracles like that can happen in the city as well.
They came back the next day to finish the job and brought their whole family to help. It was marvellous to watch them.
Our final roof is metal. Not only is it maintenance free almost forever, but it is pretty good at reflecting back summer heat energy. Those SIPPs make this less of an issue, and our church sure is insulated. The heat is very reluctant to leave, and a pretty hot summer was controlled by opening two or three of our small high windows.
Kevin Macalister was the crew forman and number two man. He seems casual but he is about twenty feet in the air.
Tom Allen is showing Ralph Pisciotta (on the ladder) and his assistant a curved switchplate he made for the curved straw bale walls. They were rather flabbergasted that he actually did it. I watched him carefully use a torch to soften and bend it. There were so many awesome touches like that from Tom's crew!
Getting ready for the consecration of the church was insane! We should have put it off another week, but somehow it looked ready minutes before. The incredibly beautiful partitions for the bathrooms arrived the morning of the consecration (after the builder Hill, with the white beard, said he couldn't possibly do it in time. More work of the Holy Spirit). Tom Allen helps with hardware while Chris Beebe, another of Tom's awesome crew watches closely.