Church Rebuilt After Fire
The First Evangelical Free Church at Assembly and Queen just underwent a $500,000 repair and remodeling job.
But Pastor Mike Henning isn’t nearly as excited about his church’s new look as he is about what his congregation learned from the experience.
“If any good comes of this, it’s not the building being built. It’s people being able to know that life goes on after tragedy,” Henning said.
An arsonist broke into the church late one night in February 1992, ransacked it and then set fire to it. The fire gutted the church offices and classrooms, leaving only the sanctuary intact.
As Henning, who had been pastor for only three months at the time of the fire, walked through the smoke-damaged sanctuary after the fire, he remembered the day he dedicated his life to God in that church. And he remembered the day in in 1966 when he and his wife became the first couple to be married there.
After the fire, Henning’s congregation had to spend months meeting in a borrowed church. As insurance companies decided on their settlements and work began, Henning said he couldn’t help but remember the other setbacks in his life.
Before becoming a minister, Henning was a career police officer in Seattle. But in 1981, while he was setting up a barricade, a car barreled into him. The resulting injuries forced him to retire.
Henning, who already knew he was headed for a calling in the ministry, moved with his wife and two sons to Colville, Wash., where he was pastor at Grace Evangelical Free Church.
Five years later the Hennings’ oldest son died at age 19 in a motorcycle accident.
Henning said the fire could have been a final straw in his life. But he and the church elders began to look for the seed of good in the debris.
“When things like this happen, they actually make your heart ache,” Henning said. “It’s like a full body blow.
“But rebuilding, for us, is sign of victory over the negativity in society.”
Rebuilding cost $350,000. The congregation invested another $150,000 modernizing the remaining parts of the building, including installing a wheelchair-accessible entrance and enlarging the church hall.
Henning assesses the value of the church with a pastor’s eyes. He sees big, inviting rooms where people’s souls can be saved.
But he says, “If a fire in this building can be used in saving one person’s life, then burn it again.”
xxxx REDEDICATION SERVICE The First Evangelical Free Church, at the corner of Assembly and Queen, will host a special service to rededicate its rebuilt church building on Sunday, April 2.