Old building to be used for Moran Public Library
MORAN — After 16 months of unprecedented growth, Moran Baptist is building a new church.
These days between 80 and 100 members fill the pews, a far cry from when Pastor Brock Goetsch first assumed the pulpit in May 2015.
Then, attendance hovered around 20. “Thirty on a good Sunday,” Goetsch said.
“The Lord’s been doing some great things here,” Goetsch said. “We’re excited about all of it.”
The congregation will host a groundbreaking ceremony during its 11 a.m. service Sunday. The site for the new church is on U.S. 54, immediately west of the Marmaton Valley High School football field.
The service will start at the church’s long-time home at the intersection of Spruce and Randolph streets.
“We’ll start here, and go through a few songs and a brief message and challenge,” Goetsch said. “Then we’ll head to the property to do the ceremony there.”
The centerpiece of the groundbreaking will be the laying of a Bible signed by all in attendance, to be buried beneath the building’s foundation.
“It’s a symbol that what we’re building is being built upon the word of God,” Goetsch said. “It’s a neat way for people to remember the occasion.”
The public, as with all Moran Baptist events, is invited.
THE CHURCH has set an ambitious construction schedule.
Goetsch hopes to see a shell erected by the end of October, with construction taking place through fall and winter.
“We should be fully in the new building, Lord willing, by February or March of next year,” he said. “It’d be nice to have our Easter service there, even if it’s not completely finished.”
If the Easter service is anything like this year’s they’ll need the space.
This year’s service drew a crowd of 129, with additional folding chairs placed alongside the church’s sanctuary to accommodate the large gathering.
The new building will feature a sanctuary with 12-foot ceilings to comfortably accommodate up to 250. A two-story section will sport seven classrooms, offices and a kitchen.
“And we’ll be looking to the future so if we need to, we can continue to grow,” Goetsch said.
The new church will be positioned so wings can be added to the new building.
Much of the land was donated by a church member. The congregation agreed to purchase another lot next door to give the church a total of about 5 acres.
“We just want to make sure we have the vision in place,” Goetsch said. “The Lord will do it if the Lord wants to do it.”
FOR YEARS Moran Baptist called a pair of quonset huts home — one for the sanctuary, the other for Sunday school classes.
The sanctuary quonset was taken down in 1996 so the existing single-story church could be built. The other quonset remained for Sunday school classes.
Members planned a few years back to take down the second quonset, and even did so, with the thought the Sunday school building would be built in the vacant area.
But in the interim, Goetsch’s predecessor, Mike Miller, retired as pastor, and so the congregation put construction plans on hold.
The Goetschs arrived, and as word of the energetic young pastor spread, membership swelled. Goetsch’s wife is Ashley. They have a son, Eli.
“We attribute (the growth) mostly to God,” he said. “The Lord has brought the people and the Lord has blessed what we’ve tried to do.”
Some community outreach has also been effective.
For example, the Easter service included a memorable egg hunt at the Moran City Park. (The eggs were dropped from a passing airplane.)
Other events, such as Vacation Bible School, also have drawn interest across the community.
“It has been a lot of different things from our church family,” Goetsch said. “Our church has gotten behind the vision.
“What we’ve found was most of the people we’ve brought in were people who have been looking for a church for a while,” he continued. “We’re very excited about that. There aren’t a lot of people who used to go to ‘that’ church. We had a guy come last Sunday, said ‘I came just because of all the cars in the parking lot.’ It’s been neat to see how God’s brought so many people.”
THE NEW building provides an ancillary benefit to the city.
The church has agreed to sell its old building to Moran, where it will become the new public library, with offices for Moran Police Chief Shane Smith.
“The city has been working for a while to get a new library, and it’s been a struggle for them,” Goetsch said. “And when we started talking about moving the church, one of our concerns was what to do with the existing building. That’s when one of our members made the suggestion, and our other members are completely behind it.
“We don’t just want to be a church,” he continued. “We want to be a community church. We think it’s awesome, and it’s good to see the city get behind it.”
