Song and prayer followed the unveiling of a foundation stone for a new Dunedin church yesterday.
Pastoral team leader Trevor Geddes unveiled a foundation stone at the site of a large centre being developed by Dunedin City Baptist Church on 7.6ha of rural land beside Dunedin's southern motorway at Concord.
More than 150 people attended the event, part of the church's 150th anniversary celebrations over Easter.
Mr Geddes said work on installing services would start this week.
''It's a massive site and we paid $250,000 for it. That's amazing.''
Land search co-ordinator Murray Cowan told the crowd many locations were considered for the new church, including the Forsyth Barr Stadium site, which ''fell through'', before the church bought the land in Concord in April 2009. Church administrator Mike Simpson said many of the neighbours and some city planners had opposed the new centre.
He thanked the ''hand of God'' for the successful planning hearing, otherwise the church would have been left with grazing land. The planned centre will include a 3900sq m main church building, including an auditorium, chapel, classrooms, offices, kitchen, multipurpose gym and child-care facility. Mr Geddes said 2500 trees had already been planted on the site. shawn.mcavinue@odt.co.nz
