NORMAN — Mark Robinson, executive pastor, and Brian Hayes, children’s pastor, of Wildwood Community Church are really excited. And they have every right to be.
The root of all this excitement comes from Wildwood’s recently completed addition dedicated to the church’s youngest members.
“It’s been a long project. There have been little things that we have been adjusting. We actually moved in the space in April but we have just now got all the pieces together,” Robinson said. “When we were going to build a children’s building, we decided we wanted it to be a space that is appealing to kids. Kids are real visual people so we started talking about ideas on how we would theme out the space. One idea that we liked was the idea of movement. As Christians we believe we are on a journey to a destination which is eternity with God in heaven. Because of what Jesus Christ has done for us, we get to enjoy the trip. It’s like a road trip, we get to go with him every where we go.”
Wildwood Community Church purchased it’s location at 1501 24th Ave. N.E. in 1985. And the congregation has grown ever since. The idea to add 21,000 square feet of space to the church located in east Norman came a few years ago when the church started busting at it’s seams.
“Our church has grown a lot in the last decade. A lot of that growth has been young growth. Our space, as we developed it, was a wonderful space, but we’ve just outgrown it. Literally, we were using closets and hallways, whatever we could do to find space for kids. We realized that we were quickly running out of that as an option,” Robinson said. “We looked at all of our options. We looked at selling this property and moving to another area of town. We looked at adding different kinds of new construction and this was the best option, staying right here in Hall Park, east Norman and adding this children’s ministry space.”
Team JYD from Oklahoma City was the creative consultant on the building. Also, Gail Armstrong Construction, a Norman-based company, served as general contractor on the project and the architect was The McKinney Partnership, also a local company.
The general idea of the expansion centers around a Route 66 theme. All of the art is original and much of the general decor are things repurposed from junkyards, like a real Spartan travel trailer estimated to have been manufactured in Tulsa around 1949.
“They (Team JYD) found it buried up to the windows outside of a truck stop in Chandler. It was one of those things where if you can get it out of here, you can have it. They dug it out and they drove it back to Oklahoma City and they didn’t know for sure where they would use it, but they found someone to give it to. It fit the Route 66 idea,” Robinson said. “I love the icon of the trailer, too because it’s the idea that church is your home away from home.”
There are four halls in the building and they all have different geographic areas — the beach, the mountains, the desert and the forest.
On Sunday morning, each age group has their own area for worship.
“The first hour is a traditional Sunday school where everyone is separated by grade,” Hayes said.
The second hour, children transition to specific areas where staff has a special service geared toward youth.
“We incorporate live worship, skits, drama, large group teaching. The reason I think this is important, is that when, especially visitors that would most commonly come on a second hour service, this is a lot more open atmosphere. There is a better chance that a family knows another family or a child knows another child. It’s just a real fun atmosphere. The graphics and just all of the happenings really make it neat. I think it sends a message that they matter,” Hayes said. “We have a lot of fun in here, but we want to make it applicable to their lives. ‘What can I do with this information this week?’ ‘How can I follow Christ better?’”
To show off all of the expansion, Wildwood Community Church will host WonderFall from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. Oct. 28. The fall festival will feature a carnival, 25 booths, bounce houses, a zip line and hey rides. Also the festival will include a walk through the Wonderland Storybook Adventure.
“It takes about 20 minutes and we’ll take 10 kids at a time with their parents and they’ll actually walk through a storybook. It takes little sections of children’s stories and tells a unique story sharing the gospel with the kids,” Hayes said. “Kids get to participate and have a tea party with the Mad Hatter. They get to have a food fight with the Lost Boys in Peter Pan. They get to swing over a river on a rope as they run away from Captain Hook. It’s really fun for the kids. There are 80 total actors that volunteered and have been working on this 30 days already. So it’s basically a two month prep. As far as the total WonderFall workers all together, it’s 284.”
The evening will culminate with a Treat and Treasure Adventure. Children will be given a pirate map and will get a stamp in all of the Wildwood classrooms. Sunday school teachers will be dressed in the theme of the room and will hand out candy.
“What’s really neat about that is as the family walks through with their kids’ eventually, they will end up in the room they will be going to themselves and meet the teachers,” Hayes said.
For more information about Wildwood Community Church or WonderFall, call 329-3939 or visit wildwoodchurch.org.
Shana Adkisson 366-3544 sadkisson@normantranscript.com
