Becky Kuntzelman | the imperial republican
Along with dozens of church attendees, a groundbreaking ceremony for the building expansion at Zion Lutheran Church was held April 20. Some of the key people involved included, from left, Mike Nelson, Rhonda Smith, Eric Exum, Karra Meeske, Ben Brophy, Geoff Beemer, Jon Nordhausen, Vicar Andrew Hill, Dale Schilke, Joel Grosbach, Ben Sauder, Wayne Haarberg, Gina Blocher, Jim Haarberg and Mike Crane.
Zion Lutheran Church holds groundbreaking for expansion
After seven years of planning for a building expansion at Zion Lutheran Church, the congregation gathered together last week for Groundbreaking Vespers followed by the groundbreaking ceremony.
The event celebrated the fruition of years of planning and nearly a year of fundraising events to get to this point.
The Zion Addition Construction Committee has been working hard to prepare for this moment, said ZAC committee chairman Jon Nordhausen.
Dale Schilke of Imperial is an Elder at the church and is employed with Engineering International in McCook as an architectural designer and construction manager, as well as a ZAC committee Chair of Safety and Security. He was instrumental in designing the building expansion.
“The firm first became involved in the future planning of the expansion the end of 2017,” Schilke said.
In addition to Nordhausen and Schilke, the ZAC committee includes Rhonda Smith, committee treasurer; Dustin Weiss, committee member; Karra Meeske, ZAC fundraising; Ben Brophy, committee member and Chair of Trustees; Mike Nelson, Chair of ZAC and trustee; Geoff Beemer, committee member and trustee; and Jim Haarberg, committee Vice Chairman.
Other key people in the building project are Eric Exum, committee member and Pinnacle Bank Financing Partner; Joel Grosbach, Kantor and Elder; Ben Sauder, Elder; Wayne Haarberg, Chair of Elders; Gina Blocher, secretary; Mike Crane, Laborers for Christ Contractor; Vicar Andrew Hill, Zion’s 2021-2022 Seminary Pastor Program, along with dozens of other folks who have been an integral part of getting to this stage of the project, Nordhausen said.
“We wouldn’t be here without the dedication and passion of all these people to the vision of the project which will provide an expanded forum for God’s word to be told to children and adults alike,” he said.
The expansion will have a basement to be used for youth classes and youth services for Sundays and Wednesdays, Schilke said.
The ground level expansion’s main objective is to add room for the day care and free up those rooms currently being used to return to church classrooms, he added.
“We hope to begin the basement work in about a month with total completion of the expansion by early summer 2024,” said Schilke.