“The church isn’t the building. The church is the people,” Pavek said, addressing a crowd gathered on the lawn outside Living Word. “We just build a building today, but we hope that this building is going to result in the church getting bigger, that this building is going to be a tool that God can use.”

Living Word Church held a groundbreaking ceremony for a new building expansion Sunday morning. The church expansion will bring the fellowship hall out of the basement, and add office and gathering space, said Dave Christensen, lead pastor at Living Word.

“We’ve grown so much, we needed a place for people to gather,” Christensen said.

Sunday’s celebration included prayer and remarks by Pavek and Christensen, before members of the congregation could join in with breaking ground. Some of the first people in line for the groundbreaking were kids, who put on hard hats and took turns digging with the ceremonial golden shovels.

Living Word Church associate pastor Greg Pavek and lead pastor Dave Christensen lifted the first shovelfuls of dirt during a groundbreaking ceremony on Sunday morning. Pavek said the growth of faith and community at Living Word was the real reason to celebrate the building project.

Christensen said the church expansion project is something that has been on the minds of Living Word members for more than five years.

“We started thinking about it and praying about it in 2018 or 2019,” he said. During the COVID pandemic, building plans were temporarily put on hold, but now Living Word Church is ready to move ahead.

Christensen said the church has been working with architecture firm designArc Group and Marcus Construction on the project. The building expansion will include fellowship space, offices and a narthex, or vestibule, that will give church members room to gather, he said.

Building community and faith will be the important thing about the project, Pavek said at the ceremony.

“Our hope is that, when we build this building, not only does it get complete, but by the end of it, the work that Jesus is doing in all of our lives will be more complete as well,” he said.

Christensen and Pavek said Living Word members will have some additional opportunities to commemorate the church expansion, like when the beams for the project come in. This summer, the church will temporarily move its offices while construction is going on, they said.