Detroit Building Still Burning Close to Messiah Church

DETROIT, MI (October 30, 2006) – Messiah Covenant Church held worship services Sunday despite a fire that started in an abandoned building next door earlier in the week and continues to burn this morning. It is the third fire adjacent to the church during the past several months.

Fire officials gave the church permission to meet despite the ongoing fire just a few yards away from the building, Pastor Bob Hoey said this morning. “People wanted to worship. It was wild.” A private school that meets in the school has met elsewhere, however. The top photo shows the proximity of the church (left) to the building that burned in June. The building that is burning currently is located just behind the church and just as close to the church structure as the building pictured here.

Firefighters thought they had extinguished the current fire 23 hours after it started last Tuesday afternoon, but were called back to the scene when it re-ignited. Smoke was so thick earlier in the week that it almost obscured the church, which could not be seen from across the street. “People were crying thinking they were watching our church going up in flames,” Hoey said. “It’s a miracle the church is still in one piece.”

On Sunday, Hoey stood outside the church with the smoke rising around the building and was telling parishioners to park further down the street, reassuring them that the service still was going to be held.

“The flames are as high as they’ve ever been,” Hoey told Covenant News Service this morning as he worked in his office. “The building is four stories high, and I’ll bet they’ve poured enough water in there to fill it at least half a dozen times.” (To see additional photos, visit Fire Rages On.)

Hoey found irony in the quote hanging in his church office that recalls the words of English missionary C.T. Studd: “Some wish to live within the sound of a chapel bell; I wish to run a rescue mission within a yard of hell.” The pastor recalled, “I saw that yesterday, and I started to feel like it. I had to laugh.”

It was one of the few moments of laughter. Officials initially feared the burning building contained hazardous materials and they evacuated the neighborhood for about five hours last Tuesday. The building is filled with chemicals and plastics material used for automobile bodies, Hoey said.

Battle continues to clear smoke

Hoey says firefighters are considering knocking down the building in order to put out the blaze. Fire trucks have been camped outside the church since the fire re-ignited.

“It’s just like the last time,” Hoey notes, explaining that another building adjacent to the church had caught fire in June and was filled with the same material.

Hoey says city officials told him that the burning building had recently been sold to a developer who wanted to convert it into lofts. The officials apparently had not been able to contact the developer as of this morning.

No cause for either blaze has been determined, Hoey said. The latest blaze is the third in recent months. The church has complained about the buildings in the past. “They’re an accident waiting to happen,” Hoey added.

The church building has suffered only minor smoke damage, Hoey observes, adding that the church is operating eight “smoke-eating machines” to clear the air inside (see lower photo).

Messiah is located in an inner city neighborhood containing a number of abandoned buildings. The church has helped spark the growth of Covenant congregations in the Detroit area that have gone from two to nine since 1999, when Messiah was adopted into the Evangelical Covenant Church.

More information will be posted to this online Covenant News Service report as it becomes available.

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