I was glad when they said to me, "Let us go to the house of the LORD!"

~ Psalm 122:1

As children in Sunday School years ago, we were taught the following rhyme about the church:   “Here is the church. Here is the steeple. Open the doors and see all the people.”   There are hand gestures to go along with it: Face hands toward each other. Lock fingers together facing down. Hold both index fingers straight up against each other. Fold thumbs inward against each other. The index fingers make the steeple, thumbs the doors, and other fingers the people inside. When the thumbs separate they represent opening the church doors to look at the people inside.

From that young age, the point of the rhyme was to remind us that, though the church is a building that we go to and love, ultimately, the church is not about the building, but the people who go to the building.  The church is here, and eternally, the body of Christ. 

However, we must admit that our church buildings and properties are special and important to us.  It is holy ground where holy and miraculous things take place.  Many generations of different people from different cultures and backgrounds gather together with the same purpose – to see Jesus!  Though the church buildings can never be the most important thing about our faith, they are an important instrument used by God for the work and mission of God’s kingdom.

Here at St. Stephen we are blessed by our beautiful campus made up of five primary building structures for the work of God’s kingdom.  At the center of our campus and our ministry sits our second sanctuary.  The groundbreaking for our current Sanctuary took place on June 26, 1983.  Less than one year later (an incredibly fast building process!) the church was Dedicated on March 11, 1984.  The first regular church service was held on April 1, 1984.