The front walkway just outside the main church doors has the letters Alpha and Omega set into the stone tiles. This pairing of the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet is symbolic of the Lord's infinite nature, of the fact that He is present in all things from first to last (Revelation 1).
We have three lovely doors you will pass through as you enter into our sanctuary.
Over the doors we have inscribed the Lord's words, "I am the way, the truth, and the life" (John 14:6). I am the way, inscribed over the initial door, reminds us that the Lord is calling us to change. We are not where He wants us to be at first! But we see the gate and the path before us. We choose to enter and follow. The truth. As we follow in the Lord's path, we come to understand the truth, and we are also touched by it. We come to love it because it leads us to an orderly life that is full of blessings. And the Life. The greatest level of joy and blessing comes not through knowing or even taking delight in the truth; it comes through living it. When our emphasis becomes leading a good life, we discover that the Lord is "the life." In other words, He is the energy in us for accomplishing good and useful things, He is the insight, He is the power to forgive and cooperate, he is the wholesome pleasure, He is everything good that we are given to enjoy! All these gifts of life we enjoy, and share, as though they were our own. but we acknowledge that they are His! Entering this "third door" is the deepest response to the Lord that we can make.
On either side of the lettering on the three panels, you will see carvings. On the first, acorns are lying on the ground. Spiritual life in potential! On the next we find acorns sprouting in the sunshine. A beginning of spiritual growth (especially growth as to our understanding of truth). And on the last panel, there are full-blown branches containing mature seeds of new life - indicating the fruitfulness that comes when we live the truth and acknowledge the Lord as the all in all of our life!
Finally, you will notice that each doorway lets through more light, and gives more visual access to what is within. The first set of doors has no windows. When we begin our spiritual journey we are more or less in the dark about spiritual life. But each level of commitment to the Lord brings more light with it, more insight, awareness, and wisdom. Hence the second set of doors has 6 windowpanes. And the last set has 12 panes, because living by His truth, and so experiencing the Lord's life in its fullness, brings the greatest light and vision of Him.
The magnificent stone we have used for our altar was found under the oak trees just southwest of the building. Some 11-15,000 years ago, a great blanket of glacial ice receded from this area, leaving in its wake a sculpted landscape - lakes, hills and valleys, and debris from the far north, including our rock. Our rock probably had its birth (and countless metamorphic rebirths) in the Canadian Shield, a mass of bedrock that goes back some 4 billion years!
When we look at the world around us, nothing compares to antiquity with rocks. This is one reason why the Word associates rocks with the Lord's eternal existence, His abiding love and presence, and His timeless truth. Our world changes, our lives change, our resolves come and go, but He remains constant. He is the Rock of our salvation!
Our altar stone is unhewn. It has not been shaped in any way by human hands. This is our way of respecting the fact that we need to honor His Word as He gives it, not changing the picture of Him it gives us, not reshaping its truth to fit our wishes but rather seeking to understand it and live it.
Our chancel furniture was all handcrafted for our church. There are many symbols of God from the Old and New Testaments carved into the wooden furniture, such as a lamb, a lion, and a vine. The doves on the baptism font represent innocence, and the 7 lampstands around our altar are a reference to the seven golden lampstands that surrounded the "One" (Revelation 1.)