Images courtesy of Valley Presbyterian Church
Weekends at Bob Jones High School in Madison, Alabama, are hopping as volunteers transform the school into a space for worship. Setting up seating for 400, creating a space for children’s ministry, organizing the hospitality area — after a year of the weekly undertaking, staff and volunteers of Valley Presbyterian Church have become well practiced in the routine, bonding through the shared labor.
But the construction site across the street on Valley Pres’ property reminds members that Sundays spent sojourning in a high school will come to an end, and the time and effort in the interim are an investment in the congregation’s future growth and thriving.
Valley Pres’ multi-million dollar capital campaign is called Renewal and Hope. The first phase of the project, now nearly completed, focused on building a new sanctuary and repurposing the previous sanctuary for expanded nursery and classroom space. Temporarily meeting in a school on Sundays is a full-circle moment for the church, which began with 40 people meeting in an elementary school 17 years earlier.
A “Family-Focused” Community
Senior Pastor William Plott was preparing to plant a church in Ohio when he got the call from the Alabama Church Planting Network about possibly planting in Madison. At the time, Madison was the biggest city in Alabama without a PCA church. For Plott, planting a church in Madison would also mean returning to his hometown, and closer to family and friends.
The core group began meeting in 2009 and purchased its current property in 2014, knowing that the building would soon need updates and expansion. Since 2009, Valley Pres has grown to about 400 members, and it draws lots of young families with children.
“Everybody that walks in the doors has got babies” and young children, Plott said. “Our community is really family-focused.”
As the church celebrated its 10th anniversary in 2019, church leaders made a plan to build a new facility within five years, but the COVID-19 pandemic the following year paused their progress. In 2021, leaders announced the Renewal and Hope campaign to officially launch the fundraising process.
Madison is a major suburb of Huntsville, Alabama. The presence of aerospace and defense companies has made for a thriving job market, and the community’s public school district ranks among the best in the state. Plott estimates that 60% of his congregation is engineers, and about half Madison’s residents come from outside Alabama, making it unlike other Southern towns.
The booming development in the greater Huntsville area meant contractors and construction companies were in high demand. The church was forced to wait for a contractor to bid on the project, but Plott’s roots in the community helped the church secure connections.
Plott went to high school with an architect who is considered one of the best in town. Barney Heyward, Valley’s part-time assistant pastor, had experience and connections in the area from his decades of pastoral ministry and years, and Jeff Kepley, a Valley Pres deacon who headed up the fundraising team, brought valuable experience from his years at Lockheed Martin.
As with any other project this big, many others in the church contributed to the campaign. The church also turned to Generis Church Generosity Consultation for assistance.
Giving Beyond Expectations
The projected cost of the project was initially $5.5 million, but rising costs and interest rates drove up the estimate to the point where church leaders had to revamp the designs and remove 12,000 square feet of expansion to keep the price tag under $8 million.
When it came time to fundraise, Plott says the congregation’s faith and generosity made the process an encouragement.
“I found [fundraising] to be the most rewarding part, and my whole attitude towards it has changed because you get to see how people want to invest in a vision and a mission. They can do something tangible to commit to what God’s doing,” Plott said.
Initially, fundraising produced $2.4 million, enough to start construction. Plott said leaders expected that they would need to hold a second fundraising campaign in another year or two, but when they told the congregation about the amount still needed to raise, members committed another $1.4 million in three weeks. There was no need for a second campaign.
At another point in the process, soft costs — administrative fees, licenses, and other costs — rose beyond expected, leaving a need for another $640,000. Church leaders sent a letter to the congregation informing them of the additional costs and asking them to contribute. In four weeks, the congregation gave $670,000.
“We’re way further than what we ever thought we would be in terms of the financial position,” Plott said.
Construction began in June 2025 and is expected to wrap up in early fall 2026.
While the Sunday service has moved across the street to Bob Jones High School, the church still has access to some auxiliary buildings that house office space and youth and adult ministries.
Waiting With Patience
Phase Two has not been finalized, but it includes constructing new buildings for office space and other ministries and expanding the church parking lot around those new buildings.
In the interim, however, the church’s ministry capacity has slowed due to lack of meeting space. The facility limitations mean that around half of the church’s ministries are currently in a holding pattern, including the weekly Wednesday night meetings. A summer move to the school’s auditorium gives volunteers a break from setting up seating in the school gym. The leadership hopes to stay in the auditorium until construction is completed, but doing so will delay resuming normal Sunday School classes.
Smaller groups, like Bible studies that don’t require as much corporate space, have been able to continue.
“Small meetings really are the extent of what we can do,” Plott says. “It’s been an interesting year of higher stress on logistics and lower stress on ministry things, but also everybody’s been just super patient that this is just a season.”
As far as pastoring the congregation through the season of transition, Plott reminds the congregation regularly that it’s a strange season, while trying to retain normalcy in as many elements as possible. Preaching has continued to progress through sermon series on the Apostles Creed and John, and the music and liturgy remain familiar fixtures.
The sustained interactions with outside contractors, construction workers, and even the community of the high school have presented another opportunity for the church in this unusual season, whether ministering to those going through a hard time, bringing cookies and treats to the construction site, or helping the school with its backpack program for families facing financial struggles.
“We’ve been able to really build a good relationship with Bob Jones,” Plott said. “Even though we’re in a very affluent area, 25% of the students at that school are below the poverty line, and so our eyes have been open to some of that and we’ve been able to to step in, in some places, and be salt and light to them. That’s been a great blessing and something that we’re going to continue to do.”
Valley Pres hopes to celebrate in the new space with a service of dedication in the fall 2026, but Plott plans to build in some time to get settled first.
In the meantime, as excitement grows, the children are particularly eager to get back on campus. Children’s Ministry Director Tammy Hall has been bringing groups of children over, grade by grade, to get a peek at the progress.
While the novelty of a construction site may delight the youngest in the congregation now, they might not appreciate until much later how much of the project is designed with them in mind.
“This isn’t just for us; this is really more so for our kids and their kids. It’s for the next pastor. It’s for the next session,” Plott said. “I really learned the value of that. It’s way more than money that you’re asking for. You’re asking for an investment in the future of God’s work in this place that he’s called you to to serve, and so that part’s been super rewarding to see people want to invest in something.”