The Pastor at the fire damaged Second Baptist Church in Centralia says services and activities have temporarily moved to the Centralia Youth Center.
Pastor Isaac Parker says Center Director Herb Williams and the Board of Directors have been very gracious to allow use of their gym for the Sunday services and other activities. Parker was assured the goodwill offering would not impact other activities at the center.
He noted several other churches also reached out to offer their facilities at times their services were not being held. Parker will be checking out a building to be left vacant by another Centralia area church in the next month to see if an arrangement can be made to use it.
Parker earlier indicated the Second Baptist Church planned to rebuild, but since the heavy fire-damaged sanctuary will have to be torn down he anticipates it will be 7 to 8 months before work could be completed. The east end of the building that contained classrooms and offices received heavy smoke damage but no fire damage and can be salvaged.
Parker has a meeting with the State Fire Marshal and the church’s insurance company later this week to hopefully learn more about the cause of the fire. He reports no one has found anything suspicious.
Centralia City Firemen say heavy smoke was rolling throughout the building when they arrived on the scene Friday afternoon after the Centralia 911 Dispatch received a smoke alarm. Multiple fire departments fought the blaze.
