Eagle Creek, Dadeville, members use carpentry skills to update pastorium

Eagle Creek, Dadeville, members use carpentry skills to update pastorium

For the past 15 years, Randy Patterson has been putting his carpentry skills to work all over the map with Carpenters for Christ.

“I’ve worked at the post office for 30 years, but I’ve built stuff all my life,” said Patterson, a member of Eagle Creek Baptist Church, Dadeville. “So when some of the guys I worked with at the post office invited me to go with them on that first Carpenters for Christ trip, I said yes.”

And he kept going.

But this year he decided to do something different with the tools in his toolbelt — he took a look at Eagle Creek’s pastorium and realized God might have a project for him in his “Jerusalem.”

James Smith, director of missions for Tallapoosa Baptist Association, came to speak at Patterson’s church one night and talked about how Acts 1:8 told Christians to go — but it told them to work at home too.

“He talked about how the missions field is right outside our door,” Patterson said. “He said there were things we could do right here to help share what Jesus has done for us.”

And Patterson realized one of those was to get a functional, up-to-date house ready for his church’s new pastor.

So he talked it over with the church properties committee and got together with church member Leonard McElvey to tear out some walls and the floor in the kitchen. 

‘All glory to God’

“Many other people lent a hand — it wasn’t just me,” Patterson said, noting his wife, Vicky, laid the tile in the bathroom.

After everyone finished the pastorium some church members got together to redo the flooring in the back of the church and add two bathrooms.

“God has put people in place to accomplish whatever He wants to accomplish,” Patterson said. “All glory goes to God.”

Smith said it was amazing to see the project come together. The pastorium was completed just days before the new pastor arrived.

“He felt called to do that,” Smith said. “He’s an example of Acts 1:8, of how we need to be involved in missions in every way possible.” (Grace Thornton)