ELMA, N.Y. (WKBW) — Just under three years ago, fire tore through the 150-year-old St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Elma. Now, the church has announced the date they are breaking ground on their new sanctuary.
May 13, 2023 was the day that changed everything for St. Paul’s, as flames shot out of the church’s 150-year-old steeple and spread throughout the wooden structure.
“It’s been quite a journey,” Pastor Jonathan Haseley said. “It felt like an eternity, but yesterday at the same time.”
Following the fire, people across the country donated more than $100,000 to aid in the St. Paul’s rebuild, which will now break ground on March 21 at 10 a.m., in front of any community members who wish to attend.
Behind the recreation hall and office building on the church campus, a new St. Paul’s is forming, starting now with tree removal. Then, construction will begin following the March groundbreaking.
“We’re glad that we are moving ahead as a congregation. We can have a place to worship and also a place where we can have community impact as well,” Haseley said.
“The new church will have running water and bathrooms; the old church didn’t have that, because it was around in the 1860s,” the church’s rebuild chairperson Bob Breidenstein said. “And, this is going to have a wonderful, larger, open, very well-lit sanctuary space.”
Breidenstein tells me that he hopes to see the construction completed late-2026 to early-2027.
“[Opening by] Christmas is optimistic, but we are hoping for shortly after the turn of the calendar,” Breidenstein said.
Until then, Sunday services will continue to be held in a converted recreation room they own next door, which, before the fire, was much more commonly outfitted for a luncheon rather than a church service.
I was at the church in September of 2023, as families who have attended the church for generations said their final goodbyes to the former building.
I also caught up with Haseley one year after the fire in May 2024.
Haseley and Breidenstein tell me outside factors, like tariffs, forced them to delay the project by about a year, but they’re happy to get work underway.
If you wish to donate to the church, you can do so here
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