Our Cornerstone Ceremony and Celebration

          Our new construction and remodeling provided the opportunity to open the cornerstone and the box it contained that was installed at the completion of our Sanctuary in 1955.  Our Archivist, Connie Stemsrud, went through the contents and selected a number of original items to add to her on-going project of creating "living archives" in volumes that now are located in our new library for all to view.  Copies of such items were replaced in the 1955 box after all items had been displayed for members to view.

          A new box was purchased and prepared to contain current items, an updated church history regarding the past 50 years, as well as pictures, a church membership roster and list of all who pledged funds to make the remodeling possible, and other items that will be of interest someday when it is opened again.

          On Sunday, March 28, the Masonic Grand Lodge of Colorado joined with our members after the worship service to carry out their very impressive and formal ceremony of laying the new cornerstone at the entrance to our new addition.  The Masons perform this ceremony when requested for schools, churches, government buildings, and other structures throughout Colorado.  Both the trade and moral purposes of each step in the ceremony were explained as they proceeded, arising from earliest Masonic practices carried out for over two millennia. 

          After the two boxes were inserted into the awaiting crypt, members of the church were invited to add some of the mortar used to seal around the new cornerstone (above).  Our youngest member, now 3 year-old Soren Downing, who had helped in our groundbreaking ceremony, was helped to add his mortar, too.

           [Prior to this ceremony, the 1955 cornerstone had been set in a new location near our remodeled offices, but without the box that had been behind it.]

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