VAN BUREN — On Friday, Feb. 27, St. Michael Church held a dedication and blessing ceremony for its newly extended parish center. Bishop Anthony B. Taylor presided over the blessing, held before a soup and sandwich reception hosted by the Rosary Altar Society.
“St. Paul says we are the building blocks of the Church,” Bishop Taylor said as he blessed the new extension, praying and speaking to parishioners in English and Spanish.
“We have 441 families in our parish now, but our parish hall could only hold 100 people,” said Dan Kelly, parish council president. “We added a full kitchen and several classrooms to our parish center so that we can hold larger events there.”
This hasn’t been the first extension for the growing parish north of Fort Smith. It built a parish center with a gymnasium in 1992 and renovated its current parish office, a former Missionary Baptist church, in 1999.
The cities of Van Buren and Alma have enjoyed rapid growth in the past four years. The nearest parish east of St. Michael is St. Mary Church in Altus, 36 miles away. To the north, only Our Lady of the Ozarks Shrine in Winslow lies between St. Michael and St. Joseph Church in Fayetteville.
St. Michael is a young parish with a large religious education and youth ministry programs and growing Hispanic community.
Kelly said he believes that families are attracted to St. Michael because of its small size and warm faith community. When a project is planned, people pitch in. The parish had already been saving for an extension in July 2008, when they decided to proceed with the parish center extension. They quickly raised $190,000 in a pledge drive, and the building was completed in early February.
Father Jack Vu, who has been pastor at St. Michael for five years, praised the generosity of his parishioners.
“We were able to build this extension through God’s grace. God gave us a gift through the people and we will use it to serve the community and give honor to the people,” he said.
Kelly said he thinks that the extension will strengthen parish life.
“The purpose of the extension is to allow for get-togethers by groups who comprise the parish and to recruit new families to the parish. I think it will add a great deal of cohesiveness to the community,” he said.
