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Congregation
says farewell to home
BY NICK G. MAHERAS
ENTERPRISE STAFF WRITER
HIGH POINT – The bulldozer’s steel-clawed arm relentlessly ripped away at
what had once been Cloverdale
Church of the Living
God – the building, the facility.
Outside in the cold January wind, the real church, its members, watched their
50-year-old spiritual home leveled with each crash, boom and thud.
A malfunctioning heating unit in the rear of the church kindled a blaze that
gutted it March 30, 2006. Through the memories and the members, the church
lives on.
“Every one of my children got married here,” said Mildred Hobert of High Point. “There’s a
lot of memories.”
All of her children were dedicated to the Lord there, she recalled, by the
late Rev. Worth R. Pugh. Her husband, Milan,
has been a member 54 years.
“It’s a real bad hurt,” he said. “It’s bad to stand and watch something that
you’ve been in and worshipped in and met many friends in the church.”
While the congregation will continue worshiping in the Worth R. Pugh Youth
Center next door as it has since the fire.
Three new buildings have been erected on skids, so when they fi nd a new location,
they can take the facilities with them. They use them for Sunday school,
children’s church and youth meetings.
The pastor and members believe this crisis opens a door of opportunity.
“It, again, is a devastating sight, and the feeling is almost as a numbness,
but yet an encouragement, because after nine months, I realize this is where
God has brought us,” said the Rev. David Perry.
“In order to move forward from where we have been, where we are, to where
God’s taking us, this had to happen.”
The congregation, which formed a planning committee to look for land before
the fire, has decided to move. They’re looking at two or three sites in the
Archdale and Trinity area – hopefully, a 10-acre tract where a new facility
can be built with a 400 seat sanctuary, rooms and offices and room for
future expansion
nmaheras@hpe.com |888-3534
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