Winchester pastor: Despite building's destruction by tornado, church is 'still here'

WINCHESTER, Ind. — Just three days after a tornado destroyed their building, about 120 members of Freedom Life Church's congregation gathered Sunday morning for an at-times emotional service in the Towne Square Community Centre, about a mile away from the now-vacant lot that once served as their home. Congregants sat on folding chairs and watched video boards that displayed lyrics of songs performed during Sunday's service. In the three days since Thursday when the tornado ravaged the church's home of three decades at 992 E. Greenville Pike, church leaders have resolved to keep the church alive as they begin the long and arduous process of rebuilding.But despite the physical loss of the structure, lead pastor Matthew Holladay told church members they had much for which to be grateful.

"We have lost a lot materially," Holladay said at the outset of the service. "Even if it hits us emotionally, we're thankful.

"We're simple this morning but we don't need anything but us and our praise of the Lord."

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In an interview before the service — and again when addressing church members — Holladay said he was especially thankful the five people in the church at the time the storm tore the building apart all had survived.

"We're so thankful God's hands have been upon us," he said. "We had five people in the church and every one of them's alive."

In the church at the time were worship pastor Peter Eric Hanlin and his wife, Thesa, who does volunteer accounting work there, along with their daughter, Whitney; her husband, Skylar Smith; and the Smiths' young son, Memphis.In an interview before the service, Skylar Smith described the scene.

"It sounded like a train," Skylar Smith said. "I thought it was a train coming by, and my wife yelled, 'That's not a train!' and grabbed our son and took off running."

Smith said his father-in-law was in the process of closing a door when the church began to come apart.

"To be truthfully honest, we don't even know how he's not carried away," said Smith, who attended Sunday's service.

Because local medical personnel feared that Hanlin might be suffering from a brain bleed, he was transported to a hospital in Dayton, Ohio, Holladay said. There, doctors determined he had no such injury.

"We saw miracles even in that," the pastor said. "In spite of all the destruction, we have seen God's hand on it."

Hanlin continues to be treated in a Dayton hospital for injuries that include a broken leg, Smith said, but he is doing well and could be released later this week.

Freedom Life plans to rebuild

Longtime church member Tony Bosworth said the church's first location about 34 years ago was in downtown Winchester before it moved to Greenville Pike a year later.

Holladay said the church would be rebuilt at the Greenville Pike location and told the congregation the rebuilding could take about a year.

Sunday's attendance at the downtown center was about the same as on most Sundays, Bosworth said. Those attending the church come largely from the Winchester area, he said, although a few travel from western Ohio.

"We're going to continue on," Holladay told those at Sunday's service. "The church isn't gone. Our building is gone, but understand, our church is still here.

"We're not hitting pause on the ministry of God."

Douglas Walker is a news reporter at The Star Press. Contact him at 765-213-5851 or at dwalker@muncie.gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Muncie Star Press: Winchester church hit by tornado will rise again, pastor tells members