fire ripped through the building<\/a> in South Oak Cliff.<\/p>\n\u201cIt\u2019s heartbreaking, isn\u2019t it?\u201d said Paul Jones, the church\u2019s head elder.<\/p>\n
Pastor Byron Ray Williams Sr. said even as they take in the damage, the congregation is holding fast to familiar words.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the midst of all of this, as Paul said in the Scriptures, we\u2019re hard pressed on every side, but we\u2019re not crushed,\u201d Williams said, pointing out several reasons for gratitude.<\/p>\n
No one was hurt in the fire. The building is still standing, though the interior suffered heavy damage. And the day the fire broke out, winter weather had forced the church\u2019s daycare to close.<\/p>\n
\u201cNobody was here that day, and it could have been horrific,\u201d Jones said. \u201cBy God\u2019s grace, we were closed that day.\u201d<\/p>\n
Worship areas were destroyed, including the stage where the choir once sang and the church\u2019s organ. But among the charred pews, Bibles remained intact.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s amazing to see,\u201d Jones said. \u201cJust as hot as this fire was, and the fire department says it was an extremely hot fire.\u201d<\/p>\n
This Sunday, the congregation\u2019s song returned. Not from the choir loft, but from a small building next door, where members gathered as part of an interim plan to continue worship.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was good for us to meet today. We needed to see each other,\u201d Jones said. \u201cWe need to comfort each other. We need to sing hymns of praise and be thankful that we made it through and that the bad things did not happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
Williams said the fire has reinforced a belief long held by the congregation.<\/p>\n
\u201cChurch is not necessarily a building,\u201d he said. \u201cThe church is in the heart of the believers.\u201d<\/p>\n
A GoFundMe raising donations to the church has been set up here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a place long filled with light and song, the silence now is loud. Church leaders walked the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":147345,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61451,102,104,103,125,61450],"class_list":{"0":"post-147344","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas","8":"tag-byron-ray-williams-sr","9":"tag-dallas","10":"tag-dallas-headlines","11":"tag-dallas-news","12":"tag-fire-department","13":"tag-paul-jones"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147344"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147344\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/147345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=147344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=147344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}