By MOLLY DAVIDSON / Staff Writer

NORTH SHELBY—Double Oak Community Church is in the midst of an exciting transformation. The church recently kicked off a building project to transform the gym into a multi-purpose meeting and class space.

Originally built in 2010, the gym housed the church’s Upward Basketball teams and served as a student center, but the congregation has since outgrown the space, Operations and Facilities Director Tim Cotton explained.

“The gym itself sat empty most of the time,” Cotton said. “Our congregation here has grown and we didn’t have a whole lot of options for educational space.”

The construction project, called the “Transformation Project,” will remodel the gym into a two-floor educational space, complete with movable walls to accommodate large groups and “break out space” for smaller meetings, Cotton said.

“It’s going to be two floors of classroom space,” Cotton said. “We can configure both upstairs and downstairs to any number of set up needs.”

In addition to giving existing groups “the ability to spread out a little bit,” Cotton said the repurposed space will allow the congregation to grow. Around 12 community groups meet at Double Oak Community Church each Sunday, and Cotton said he hopes to see that number increase to more than 20 groups.

After years using places in the community as meeting space, Cotton said the community will be welcome to make use of the new space when it is completed.

“As a community church, we also make our space available as much as we can to outside groups,” Cotton said.

The entire renovation comes with an $875,000 price tag, all of which was financed by those within the church community.

“We were able to raise all the money with internal resources and a building campaign,” Cotton said. “We don’t anticipate having to borrow any money… this is a very energized congregation.”

The Transformation Project is expected to be complete by Easter weekend, the same weekend as Double Oak Community Church’s 10th anniversary.

“The Church’s first meeting was Easter,” Cotton said, adding the completion date was an encouraging coincidence. “It wasn’t planned that way.”