It’s taken more than 10 years after buying the land, but Krum United Methodist Church has finally broken ground on the site of its new building.

When the building project is done, the church will have a new sanctuary — with plenty of room to grow — at 1001 E. McCart St.

Courtesy photo

Pastor Christy Thomas (top left) and lay leader Joe Emerson address Krum United Methodist Church congregants at the groundbreaking ceremony of the new church sanctuary.

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It’s the first new home the church has built since 1924. The church’s basement was built first, an addition in 1936 helped the church expand and a wing with classrooms was built in 1979.

“I was told by the bishop: ‘Get the building built,’” said Dr. Christy Thomas, senior pastor.

The North Texas Conference of the United Methodist Church moved Thomas from a flourishing Dallas parish, Lovers Lane United Methodist Church. For years, the Krum congregation has been a church led by new, entry-level pastors. The local branch of the denomination decided a more experienced minister would be needed to lead the congregation through a fundraising campaign that would finally build the new church.

The church bought 10 acres in 1995. Paying for a new building still seemed out of reach. Tim Jones grew up in the Krum church, and was away after he graduated from college for about 8 years. The congregation — now with 214 members — knew it needed to buy land as part of planning.

“The thought was ‘we better buy some land before we can’t get any,’” Jones said. “I’m really grateful to the board back then for having that kind of foresight. Plus it’s out toward where all the new building is going on. That’s high-traffic area.”

Rev. Thomas, the church’s sixth pastor in the last 10 years, was the minister to lead the building campaign. She started laying the foundation, spiritually, in 2006. The pastor read Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous speech, “I Have A Dream.” Inspiration flared, and in February of 2007, Thomas reminded her congregation that she had a dream as their pastor, one that was meant to revive the congregation’s own dream to build a more accessible sanctuary.

King’s speech was about radical hospitality, Thomas said. Krum United Methodist wanted to be hospitable, but for a host of reasons, the church was holding back. Money was a big reason. Churches are nonprofit organizations, and the prospect of debt can whip up anxiety like few other risks. Thomas pointed out that the bishop who assigned her was smart. The longer the church waited to build, the more costly the project became. In the meantime, the old brick building near downtown Krum grew harder and harder for some congregants to reach.

“The building is not for little kids, and it’s not for older people either. In the hospitable church, you’re saying ‘come dine at our table,’” Thomas said. “This understanding of hospitality, this Martin Luther King Jr. speech, really helped everything come together.”

Thomas still recalls her sermon the morning she laid out her dream to the congregation.

“Tears just started flowing with me,” Thomas said.

The intentional construction of the mid-size church reflects the faith values of a time that pre-dates the Americans with Disabilities Act. The church entrance is elevated, Thomas said, as a deliberate physical exercise to change the mindset of parishioners as they come to church. The act of moving upward was thought to give congregants the feeling of moving away from the world and into a sacred space.

Thomas said the unfortunate fact is that Krum United Methodist Church is experiencing the same reality all mainline Protestant churches are struggling with. Church membership is graying, and a fair number of congregants lose some of their abilities as they age. They might need canes, walkers or wheelchairs. The church isn’t built for congregants who have trouble with stairs.

Thomas said the church hired a consultant to begin the fundraising process, which was named “Dare to Dream” as a tribute to the Martin Luther King Jr. speech. For a congregation that had avoided such campaigns, the numbers should have seemed scary. A consultant said the building committee should set three goals: $200,000, an amount they were sure they could raise; a challenge amount of $250,000; and a best-case scenario number of $300,000.

It turns out the congregation wasn’t scared of the dollar amounts, Thomas said. The Dare to Dream team raised $287,000 in “pilot gifts,” which were the first gifts pledged.

“We made our ‘stretch’ amount in the first part of the campaign,” Thomas said. “When I saw the pledges, I thought, ‘This is what the gospel is all about — giving when you’re not sure it’s going to be there.’”

Thomas is the first minister to lead the church through a capital campaign. She has made a big investment in the church’s future. After a lot of prayer, Thomas consulted with her husband, the Rev. J. Keith Cupples of Kirkwood United Methodist Church in Irving. She pledged to the building campaign herself. She was so inspired by her congregation that she raided her retirement savings for the campaign.

“The circle of trust enlarged,” Thomas said. “The whole fundraising process has become intensely spiritual for me. I feel like God has honored obedience.”

Jones said Thomas surprised her congregation during the pilot campaign. Her commitment made parishioners feel it was safe to give, too. Jones describes his church as a congregation of elders and young families, and that members run the gamut from affluent to working-class. The campaign drew in the entire membership. No one gift was more meaningful than any other, even if a gift might have been smaller than another.

“It was actually pretty exciting, you know, to see people step up and make commitments,” he said. “It’s what’s best for this church. A pastor at our church before Christy told us that consensus doesn’t mean that we all agree on every different detail, but we agree on what we’re doing. I’d say just about everybody stepped up and made a commitment. Christy gave her commitment before. When she said what she planned to do in that meeting, I really kind of had to control my emotions. To hear that come out of her mouth instead of ‘hey, I’m moving [to another church]’ really showed us that she’s committed. It’s one thing to ask your own members to write that check, but to have your pastor do it, it takes it to another level.”

The church broke ground earlier this year in an emotional ceremony. Members, even the youngest, clutched shovels and turned a piece of North Texas earth as a tribute to their future as a community-minded, missions-oriented church, Thomas said.

The church doesn’t have a timeline set for the final two construction phases. However, Thomas said they already have a vision for the new building. They plan to be in the new building in December.

“We want this building to have lots and lots of use,” she said, pointing out the church hopes to expand their programs for children. “I like to think the church will be a place where people come to concerts, classes and things like that. We will keep these doors open to the community.”

LUCINDA BREEDING can be reached at 940-566-6877. Her e-mail address is cbreeding@dentonrc.com .