Extreme Makeover Church Edition Hailed a Success

GLEN VALLEY, WV

Pastor Rick Paddington never dreamed the day would whe he would see his church worshipping in a brand new sanctuary, but when the crew from ABC knocked on his door this past March everything changed.

"I was speachless," said Paddington, pastor of the Glen Valley Independent Methodist church, a small congregation of 19 in the rural hills of West Virginia. 'I mean, for the past 25 years we've basically worshipped in a shack, and now we have this amazing new building. It's just such a blessing!"

TNN spoke with the show's producer Ty Pennington about the work that they did on the church.

"When we got their picture and story we knew this was the one. It was going to be a real challenge to modify this run-down old barn house into a flourishing megachurch."

When the remodeling was being done the entire church, the pastor and the 19 members, were all sent on a one week trip to Disney Land. The crew began to brainstorm about how they were going to transform Glen Valley into the church they envisioned.

As the week pressed on the tension mounted as to whether the new building was going to be completed in time for the regular 11AM Sunday Morning worship time, when the pastor and congregation would return from their vacation.

"Once again," said Pennington, "we found ourselves working through the night, wondering if perhaps maybe this time we wern't going to get it done in time. But amazingly we pulled it off."

"It's overwhelming," said church pianists and life-long member Beatrice Herns. "They put in a brand new nine-foot long grand piano!"

Amid the excitement there are some concerns that the megastructure in the rural hills of West Virgina may be too much. "Not to sound ungreatful," said Paddington, "but I wasn't expecting something so large. The sanctuary seats 1500, and the entire population of Glen Valley is only just over 800."

In addition to some 1480 seats that are empty on any given Sunday there are a number of other items in the church that aren't being used including the .5 million dollar pipe organ, 35 Sunday school rooms, two nursuries, a choir loft, a $100k sound system, and a church kitchen filled with Kenmore appliances from Sears.