{"id":29689,"date":"2021-07-22T23:26:53","date_gmt":"2021-07-23T03:26:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=29689"},"modified":"2021-07-22T23:56:50","modified_gmt":"2021-07-23T03:56:50","slug":"aurora-united-church-ground-breaking-met-with-joy-and-gratitude","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/aurora-united-church-ground-breaking-met-with-joy-and-gratitude\/","title":{"rendered":"Aurora United Church ground-breaking met with \u201cjoy and gratitude\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

After seven long years, it was with \u201cjoy and gratitude\u201d that members of the Aurora United Church (AUC) community greeted the formal ground-breaking last week on their new spiritual home on the site of their traditional place of worship, which was destroyed by fire in 2014.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Members of the congregation, Mayor Tom Mrakas, and representatives from Amica Senior Living, gathered at Yonge and Tyler Streets to turn the sod not only on a new home for AUC but an associated seniors\u2019 residence which will be built just to the north of the church.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is with great joy and gratitude that we gather here today on the site that has held our collective dreams for seven years now,\u201d said Reverend Lorraine Newton-Comar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The site has been the home of many dreams over the past 200 years, from its first consecration to the Methodist Church by settler William Tyler in 1818, to two successive buildings, each of which were destroyed in a blaze.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last week, however, was the start of a new chapter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn the realm of mission, which gives our church community purpose, the congregation of Aurora United Church discerned together that our mission could be more deeply realized and made more meaningful by rebuilding our church and reaching out to developers who would work with us in broadening our worship and mission goals,\u201d said Newton-Comar. \u201cWe have been blessed by the presence of Succession Development and Amica in this time. We have come a long way together and our appreciation could not be more sincere.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This gratitude was echoed by Mayor Mrakas who said he was \u201chonoured\u201d to be with the congregation to share in this \u201cimportant historic moment\u201d not only for them but Aurora\u2019s Downtown Core as a whole.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is an emotional day for all of us,\u201d he said. \u201cFor me, it is a day of recollection as well as excitement, remembering the past but looking forward to the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOn the day of the fire [our Town] changed and a piece of history was lost, but what wasn\u2019t lost was a sense of community, the coming together of Aurora residents. Amid the devastation, Aurorans showed that the church is more than just a physical structure. It is a community and a family. Over the years since the fire, we have seen true resilience, a galvanized and energized community intent on rebuilding what was lost and despite delays in the rebuild, that day has finally come: the official groundbreaking on what will be a stunning new church proudly looking to the future with nods of the past, a place to share with faith and community, and a refuge of peace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTo the many volunteers here today, the faithful stewards and everyone involved in the church reconstruction effort, place accept my thanks on behalf of Aurora Council. I look forward to the United Church reclaiming its space in the heart of the historic Downtown and to many memories set to be made in the years to come.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his remarks, architect Bob Murphy said his organization started working with the United Church of Canada to help evaluate \u201cdevelopment potential\u201d for existing congregations across the county and had done about 50 of these evaluations before they got the call from AUC following the fire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI met a very dispirited group of people but they were tough and they were resilient and they were faithful,\u201d said Murphy of his first meeting with the group shortly after the blaze. \u201cWe have really loved working on this project, working with the church and Amica. It\u2019s a rare opportunity to have a redevelopment project of this scale in an urban setting [and Council] kept our feet to the fire and out of that particular fire I think came a better design than the one we went in with.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Symbols of the fire have been incorporated into the church design, he added, including a prayer labyrinth on the floor of the sanctuary and a series of stained glass windows salvaged from the debris that will be one of the focal points for people entering the church.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m so glad we have those artefacts to hang our hat on because they really were a visual symbol of the old church,\u201d he continued. \u201cThey are now the raison d\u2019etre of the new church. The original building was a bit closed in, you weren\u2019t quite sure what was happening, you had to go up many steps from the street to venture inside. The Committee was adamant that the new design would be open and inviting and at street level.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A great deal of the rebuild project was led by Brian North, who headed up the committee of church officials steering the new building.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his remarks, he said many never thought it would take seven years to get to this point, but volunteers have been putting in the leg work and will continue to do so after the new church has opened its doors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been so fortunate to have the support and patience of the congregation,\u201d he said. \u201cI often said if we didn\u2019t have the leadership in our church that we have had through this process I am not sure we would have reached this day. Reverends Andy (Comar) and Lorraine have been so supportive and dedicated to the task at hand and I personally don\u2019t think I could have continued this far if not for their support and dedication.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Added Newton-Comar in a prayer just before the sod-turning: \u201cWe gather here to ask for your blessing on this land. May this continue to be a place of worship and also of caring, of extravagant welcome and sharing, and a place where people experience your presence and love.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir<\/strong>
Editor
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter<\/em><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After seven long years, it was with \u201cjoy and gratitude\u201d that members of the Aurora United Church (AUC) community greeted the formal ground-breaking last week on their new spiritual home on the site of their traditional place of worship, which was destroyed by fire in 2014. Members of the congregation, Mayor Tom Mrakas, and representatives […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":29642,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29689","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/2021-07-15-06.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-7IR","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-17 12:28:26","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29689"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29689\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29642"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}