In Progress: Members of Lloyd Presbyterian Church undaunted by disarray from renovations

Plastic swathes the front vestibule, pitted plaster walls are covered with scaffolding and the weathered wooden pews are pushed together as close as airline seats.

But members of Lloyd Presbyterian Church greet the work-in-progress that is their church these days with tolerance, if not love.

"Being here at Lloyd is an invention every time you come," said Catherine Hendren, a church member. "People make the worship."

Last fall, the church set a goal to raise $201,000 to restore the early 20th-century church. About 1,000 people contributed to the effort, raising $218,000, said the Rev. Laura Spangler, the church's pastor.

What isn't used in the restoration of the church will go into a maintenance fund, Spangler said.

Restoration of the church was not a sure thing when the effort was announced.

The church has fewer than 50 members from across the community. Hendren lives in the city's historic West End neighborhood. Some of the people who attend the church are homeless. People of all ages and race worship side by side.

Spangler has called the church a place of "radical hospitality."

Northern missionaries encouraged the formation of the church in the 1870s as part of a national movement to establish black Presbyterian churches in the South.

The local chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality met there during the civil-rights era.

That tradition continues today, with the church operating a day shelter for the homeless from the basement. The church planted a vegetable garden on the grounds. It intends to use the garden to teach people from the homeless shelter to grow their own food, Spangler said.

The historic significance of the church, and its compelling story, helped bring in money from individual donations, grants, fundraisers and Presbyterian organizations, Spangler said.

The church is one of the few Carpenter Gothic Revival buildings in Forsyth County. It is the second-oldest black church building in the county, said John Larson, the vice president for restoration at Old Salem Inc. who served as a volunteer consultant for the church's restoration.

The church also is one of the few remnants of the Depot Street era of the 1920s, when the neighborhood around the church was a thriving black business district.

The church has a beadboard ceiling and an elaborate chandelier. But water, time and termites had taken their toll.

The old building needed a new heating and cooling system, repairs to the plaster walls, a new roof and carpentry work.

Hayes Wauford, the vice president of Wilson-Covington Construction, said that like many old buildings, the church's history was written in the patchwork of molding, siding and trim that his crew found.

There were as many as three or four different moldings that had been pieced together through the years, he said. Much of the lumber used in the church was likely salvaged from the Reynolds factories and Reynoldstown houses.

There were unpleasant surprises, such as termites, and pleasant ones, such as finding the church's original door in the crawl space, Wauford said.

Almost half of the siding could not be saved because of water damage, he said, and the roof had shifted so much over the years that shingles couldn't be set in straight lines.

"Oftentimes you're using modern tools -- cordless and corded tools and sometimes even modern materials to replace the old materials," he said. "A lot of times you have to throw away the level and the straight edge and go from there."

Estella McFadden, a longtime church member, said that the work has been trying at times, but it doesn't stop the congregation from doing what it was meant to do, which is praise God.

In some ways, the construction chaos is reminiscent of the church's roots in the early 20th century, when church members built much of the church themselves, she said.

The women nailed on the clapboards from the ground up until they couldn't reach any higher, she said, and then the men took over. Back then, much of the money for the church came in through small change from people in the surrounding neighborhood.

The services at Lloyd Presbyterian still have that same homespun spirit, Hendren said.

"Because it isn't rehearsed, it is very real," Hendren said. "There's always something surprising and authentic. You take the gifts they bring every time."

■ Mary Giunca can be reached at 727-4089 or at mgiunca@wsjournal.com.

Journal Graphic by Nicholas Weir - Click to enlarge