Parkside Church Opens its Doors

CLIFTON PARK, NY (07/24/2008)(readMedia)--

Parkside Church is moving into its new state-of-the-art church at 14 Jarose Place in Clifton Park, this Sunday, July 27. The 10am service will be the culmination of years of expansion, fundraising, planning and praying by the 175-member congregation.

Paul McCart established the church in September 1996, and for the majority of the past 12 years the church has called the Ballston Lake Community Center on Burning Bush Boulevard, home. About seven years ago, the church began looking for land upon which to build their own house of worship, which led Pastor Paul to the front door of Eva Jarose. Mrs. Jarose lives on Grooms Road in Clifton Park where she and her family owned a large parcel of land. After several meetings between the Jarose family and Pastor Paul to discuss the church’s efforts to expand and grow into a new facility, the Jarose family generously donated six acres of their land to Parkside Church located just ½ mile west from Exit 8a of the Northway. The remaining land was sold to a contractor to be sub-divided into residential lots. The Jarose family will be joining the church at this Sunday’s 10am service.

While the donation of the land was an important first step, the next obstacle was raising the funds to pay for the new construction. A capital campaign with the goal of raising $200,000 started in early 2005. Through fundraising efforts and generous donations from church members, Parkside hit their mark in January 2006. Following this hurdle, the church started the process securing an architect and a builder and the construction for the new building began in the fall of 2007.

“We have been working and praying for years and to finally be where we are today, ready to celebrate in our new church, it’s a blessing,” said Pastor Paul McCart. “It has certainly been quite a journey and we are not slowing down now. With our new building, we are expanding from one service to three, including a Thursday night service which will meet weekly at 7pm. We have found that most people are constantly juggling an ever busy weekend schedule, and recognizing this, we are now offering a service on Thursday night so that you don’t have to choose between church and family activities.”

The popular 10am Sunday service will stay put, and the third service will be the addition of a 8:30am service on Sunday to meet the needs of those seeking a more traditional style church service. The worship at our Sunday 10am and Thursday evening services involves a band with lights, video, and singing the latest contemporary worship songs.”

“We’re not working on the theory that “if you build it they will come” but instead that this momentum has been building for years and our hope is to continue that growth,” said Pastor Paul.

Parkside is an Evangelical Covenant Church with a mission to help people make life’s most important connections; specifically to God, as families, in friendship, with their community and to the world.

The media is welcome to join Parkside for their 10am service, the optimal time to visit is at 10:30 a.m. to see the service and then have an opportunity to speak with people afterwards.

-30-