The Rev. John McDermott is a happy man these days, and you can hardly blame him.

The church he and his wife, Pam McDermott, started in June 1992 with eight members meeting in the McDermott family’s living room — and later a variety of borrowed spaces around Lawrence — is finally moving into a permanent home of its own.

Morning Star Christian Church, which has been using the gymnasium of Sunset School, 901 Schwarz Road, as its one-day-a-week gathering place for the past six years, is readying for the transition to a permanent location.

The congregation is planning to celebrate its first Sunday worship services March 2 at its new church at 998 N. 1771 Road in northwest Douglas County. A grand opening for the community is scheduled for April 13.

“It’s like, ‘Pinch me — am I dreaming? Is this real?'” said John McDermott, 39, Morning Star’s pastor, as he watched workmen nearing completion on the $950,000 project.

But it’s not just the prospect of having a crisp, clean and expansive church that has McDermott elated. There’s more to it than that.

“The reason we’re so excited is not so much that we have a new building, but that we have a facility to do what God has called us to do: help families to grow strong,” he said.

Pam, 37 and married to John for 13 years, looks at the impending move a slightly different way.

“I think about it like our house where we started out with (their oldest child) Alexandra. It seemed huge at first. But after we had five kids 10 years later, it was tight, and we couldn’t have people over easily. You couldn’t really live the way God wanted you to live,” she said.

“I look at the church the same way. Now we can have a greater impact on the community and do what God wants us to do.”

Developed a vision

THE REV. JOHN MCDERMOTT, left, and his wife, Pam, eagerly await the opening of Morning Star Christian Church's new building at 998 N. 1771 Road. The facility will feature a 5,400-square-foot multipurpose room that will serve as the sanctuary, fellowship hall and sports activity area.

The idea of Morning Star moving into a home of its own isn’t new.

The church actually established a building fund about five years ago with that goal in mind. There was roughly $8,000 in the fund when the church leadership started looking for possible locations to build.

Morning Star bought the five-acre site northwest of Lawrence from J. Stewart’s Terravest Custom Homes in November 1999 for $60,000.

About two weeks before closing on the deal, the church received an anonymous gift of $50,000 — from a member of Morning Star known only to John — to apply toward the purchase. Ground was broken in June 2002.

The whole thing was a big decision and, like any venture, a bit of a risk.

“The leadership prayed about it, and there was a strong sense we need to take a step of faith, because all we had at that point was a young congregation and a piece of land,” John said.

“We developed a vision and put it before the congregation. We had a building campaign, and we’ve raised $500,000.”

The money has been used to create an impressive, gleaming facility atop a hill looking over a wooded valley to the south and Interstate 70 to the north. The site is located in Oak Ridge Estates, a residential area Terravest is developing.

The church measures 12,960 square feet, but initially, only 9,500 square feet of that total area will be finished.

Later on, spaces running along the church’s east and west side — each one measuring about 1,700 square feet — will be used as a center for youth ministry and a room with a coffeehouse set-up for socializing and various group meetings.

The building also houses a spacious foyer, four classrooms for Sunday school and adult education, a nursery area, a fully equipped kitchen, restrooms and offices for church staff.

But the heart of the facility is a 5,400-square-foot multi-purpose room, 60 feet long by 90 feet wide, that will serve as the sanctuary, fellowship hall and sports activity area.

The multi-purpose room, which will have the capacity to seat about 400 people, is being outfitted with an audio-visual system with projectors, speakers, theatrical lighting and a stage.

In order to dull the sound from future volleyball and basketball games, the walls will be lined with at least 35 4-foot by 8-foot acoustic panels.

The project is being completed by Hernly Architects, 920 Mass., and Strickland Construction Co. of Olathe.

Youthful congregation

Morning Star Church — an evangelical congregation affiliated with Morning Star International, a worldwide movement based in Nashville, Tenn. — has had strong ties to Kansas University from the beginning.

John, who is from Manhattan, graduated from KU in 1986 with a bachelor’s degree in economics. Pam earned her bachelor’s in French from KU in 1987. The couple met at the school through a Christian campus ministry.

After they graduated from college and then married in 1989, the McDermotts decided they wanted to become involved in developing a campus ministry themselves.

“We started Morning Star by reaching out to KU. We didn’t want to build a church where people were coming from other churches and transferring their memberships. We wanted to reach people who didn’t have a relationship with God. A college campus sounded like a good place to start,” Pam said.

Today, Morning Star’s Victory Campus Ministry — headed by Erik and Jen Fish — has a staff of 11 college graduates working full time at KU and Kansas State University.

Morning Star has remained a young church. John estimated that roughly 30 percent of the congregation is made up of college students from KU and other schools. And the average age of adults in the congregation is about 29.

The church has attracted many athletes from KU’s baseball, volleyball, soccer and football programs.

Simply having a nice, new building to call home won’t necessarily make Morning Star a better church than it was before, according to John.

“We already have a lot of strong relationships. But I think our church, and Pam and I in particular, are excited about this because we can be a better asset to the community and help bring families together,” he said.