LINCOLN (SNR) - St. Michael Parish in Lincoln is one step closer to a new church.
Realizing the prayers, dreams, hope and hard work of more than 110 years, parishioners gave thanks to the Lord as they broke ground for their long-planned new church March 8.
The groundbreaking was the latest milestone in the parish’s 111-year history. The new building will be the parish’s third structure and will be the first permanent church constructed.
Pastor Father Kenneth Borowiak and assistant pastor Father Andrew Schwenka were the first to break ground in the location where the new church will be located.
The groundbreaking took place after Mass. A procession of priests, parishioners, acolytes, Fourth Degree Knights of Columbus, school and CCD students, and altar servers followed to the building site.
After the Ritual for the Groundbreaking for a New Church, Father Borowiak and Father Schwenka, chairs of various parish organizations, parish families and children took turns turning a spade full of earth.
Several couples who are longtime members of St. Michael Parish reflected on the groundbreaking. Anita Severe and her husband L.P. Stewart joined St. Michael Parish on their wedding day in 1951. They celebrated all the sacraments for their children in the first St. Michael Church built in 1909. That small, wood-frame clapboard building had no running water and at first had no electricity.
The cost of construction for the first church was largely funded by a $500 grant from the Catholic Extension Society in Chicago, a national fundraising organization established in 1905 which supports and strengthens poor mission dioceses across the United States. It provides funding and resources to dioceses and parishes through programs and services investing in people, infrastructure and ministries.
The grant was made to St. Michael Parish because at the time most of the diocese was considered missionary territory. In 2009, St. Michael parishioners repaid that original grant to the Catholic Extension Society, with interest, thus repaying the generosity and paying forward the ability for another parish to build a new church in missionary territory.
Severe, now 94, is St. Michael’s oldest parishioner. She marvels at the plans for the new church.
“It is somewhat unreal,” she said. “It is fantastic that it is going to be so big in comparison to what we’ve had in the past.
“When we first joined St. Michael Parish there were about 20 families,” she added. “You knew everyone.”
Severe encouraged those who have joined the parish recently to support every aspect of the parish’s life.
“We’re going to have a beautiful church to worship in,” she said. “I encourage everyone to support the parish by their involvement.”
The person who has been a member of St. Michael longer than anyone else is Marilyn Maney of Bennet. She has been a member since her baptism 85 years ago and remembers the first two churches fondly.
“I received my first Communion in the first church in 1942 from Father Flicek,” she said. “A couple of years later I received the Sacrament of Confirmation in that church from
Bishop Kucera, along with 12 soldiers from the airbase in Lincoln,” she added.
Maney sees the construction of the third and first permanent church as progress and growth.
“This new church is a continuation of my family heritage and the promulgation of our Catholic faith,” she said.
A parish hall was constructed across the street from the first church in 1970. Foreseeing growth within parish boundaries a second St. Michael church was constructed across the street from the original one in 1987, and attached to the parish hall. Originally built as a temporary church, it was planned that the second church would be repurposed when a permanent church was built.
The second church served the parish for 26 years.
Upon construction of the current St. Michael School, a Vietnamese Catholic community acquired the parish facilities in 2011 and renamed it as St. Andrew Dung Lac Parish.
Ed and Gerry Mischnick, who have been members of St. Michael Parish for 60 years, said they are excited for the construction of the new church. Plans to build a second church began in 1970 with the construction first of a parish hall across the street from the first church. The Mischnicks contacted every parish family and asked them for financial support for that hall, and were able to raise the money necessary for its construction.
Fifty years later they are still active parishioners involved in the planning and construction of this church.
“I knew it was always going to happen,” Gerry said. “And now it is. Even though it has taken 15 years to plan and raise the money for this church, that wait was certainly worth it.
“It is almost overwhelming,” she continued. “Parishioners’ prayers and efforts have brought this new church about,” she added.
Her husband Ed echoed her sentiments. “I’m thrilled,” Ed said. “In this church we will find what we have been working toward. It is a fulfillment of a dream.”
Recent development and planning
The groundbreaking for the new church is the culmination of 15 years of concentrated planning at St. Michael. Responding to known and planned significant growth within parish boundaries, St. Michael Parish purchased 14 acres in December 2005 in the southeast corner of Lincoln. The parish has grown from 300 families in 2005 to 1,000 families today.
Since the land purchase, five capital campaigns have raised at least $20 million for capital construction and operations. Construction of the current 52,000-square-foot grade school and multipurpose building was completed in August 2011 and dedicated by Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz. St. Michael School opened grades K-6 in August 2011. Seventh and eighth grades were added in the next two years, and 315 students are currently enrolled in preschool through eighth grade. The entire debt on that $7.1 million dollar project was retired in December 2017.
A parish building committee to design and plan the new church and academic build-out was established in June 2019. Parish listening sessions were held in July 2019. With feedback from those meetings, architects and the parish building committee began planning in earnest.
Various parish organizations such as the Knights of Columbus, Parish Council of Catholic Women and Finance Committee meet regularly to discuss elements of the design and to deliberate the process.
The St. Michael Parish Building Committee also met with the Diocesan Finance Committee, the Diocesan Liturgical Committee and the Diocesan Building Commission to discuss various elements of the building’s design and plan.
A five-year capital campaign, “Building Our Faith,” to raise the remaining necessary monies to finish off the project will begin in 2020. Construction is projected to be completed by late 2021. Sampson Construction of Lincoln is the general contractor for the project.
Project features
Construction will begin in mid-2020 and the current project is a two-story 32,000-square-foot building.
The project, designed by RDG Planning and Design of Omaha and Clark-Enersen Architectural Partners of Lincoln, will include a neoclassical church with Polish Baroque features and a lower level academic build out that will serve as a junior high for St. Michael School.
The church will seat 750; an additional 200 may be seated in chairs in the narthex. The design of the nave is cruciform, with the pews in the transepts looking forward.
An adoration chapel dedicated to Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament will be a central feature of the church. There will be five permanently-constructed confessionals within the nave.
The baptismal font will be in a dedicated area in the narthex. An organ and baby grand piano will be in the choir loft in the rear of the church. Auxiliary rooms will include a family room, a bridal room, meeting rooms and a cry room.
The lower level will include new classrooms for sixth, seventh and eighth grades. It will also include a kiln for a dedicated art room, student work areas and teacher lounge.
A future element will be art glass windows. Three circular rose windows will adorn the church, one each in the transepts of the nave and one above the main entrance of the church. The transept windows will feature images of the spiritual and corporal works of mercy while the front window will exhibit images of the seven capital virtues.
The forecast completion date is late 2021.
