By EMILY SPARACINO / Staff Writer

CHELSEA – A renovation project happening at Liberty Baptist Church in Chelsea will bring more space and technological upgrades to the church’s worship center and adjacent rooms.

Phase A of the project started on July 13 and includes renovations to the worship center and surrounding hallways, classrooms and offices. Phase A could be finished in early October and is estimated to cost roughly $1.1 million, Minister of Education Leon Burdette said in a July 22 interview.

“As far as the worship center itself, there’s going to be everything from new flooring, paint, new lighting, sound system and media screens,” Burdette said, adding all new seating will be installed, too. “We just needed to upgrade the space because it has not been.”

Pews will be replaced with about 425 padded lockable chairs, which can seat more people and can be moved for gatherings during the week that require floor space.

“It does allow us to provide more seating capacity in the existing worship center (and) to make the floor space of the worship center more multi-purpose,” Burdette said. “That’s one of the main reasons we did it.”

The media in the worship center – the screens and technological devices – will be upgraded to better provide live feeds of worship services to the chapel and online.

When Phase A is completed, the church plans to update the education space and fellowship hall, Burdette said.

All worship services are being held in the fellowship hall while the worship center undergoes renovation.

On Sundays, the church sees an average of 850 people coming in for worship services, Burdette said.

The current main building with the worship center and classrooms was constructed in the late 1980s and “took multiple years of weekend work because a lot of this was done by church members,” Burdette said.

Prior to that, churchgoers met in the chapel building on the property.

“The chapel is now our video (worship) venue with live music,” Burdette said. “Messages send down to us from the main worship center. We opened up the chapel venue a few years back, which allowed us to provide 150 more seats.

“Both venues are open for two services on Sunday. We have a 9:15 and a 10:45 service in both places.”

Formed nearly 168 years ago, Liberty Baptist Church and its growing congregation are ready for the upgrades, Burdette said.

“It’s kind of a new chapter in the history of Liberty,” Burdette said. “It’s been a couple years in the works. We would certainly invite (people) to experience Liberty today.”