After several years of squeezing into their former sanctuary, space is no longer an issue for the congregation at Zion Mennonite Church in Schanzenfeld. 
Construction on a new 18,000 square foot building was recently completed, and the congregation has already had the opportunity to worship in their new sanctuary.
"We've been over capacity for three to four years," said building committee member Arthur Krahn. Krahn said they took awhile to come to a decision as to how to address the lack of space, and discussed a number of options.
"But ultimately, after some prayerful consideration, we decided that we did indeed want to build a bigger sanctuary so we could keep the congregation that had gotten to know each other and grown close over the years together."
Krahn noted the original sanctuary had seating for about 200 to 300 people.
The addition of a new foyer about 15 years ago allowed them to increase seating in the sanctuary by about 20 percent, and now in the last few years the congregation had outgrown that space.
"If we really pushed the limits, we could get between 400 and 450 people in the old sanctuary. Now with the new one, we can now fit 800 to 900, depending how cozy we wanted to get."
A special service was recently held to dedicate the new building to God's service.
"One of the points that we wanted to stress was that, yes we do have a new building, and there's going to be some useful and nice features, but more importantly it's about the work of the church and the work of God," said Krahn. "The building will allow us to do more of that work and reach more people."
Meanwhile, Krahn said discussion is underway to determine how to use the old sanctuary, which is linked by a hallway to the new facility.
He said one idea is to move the current kitchen upstairs and convert the sanctuary space into a dining hall.
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