I went into Old First Church this afternoon and I couldn’t get over the transformation by the Transformers, the group from Gibbsville, Wisconsin that’s spent the week sprucing things up.

Chris Wensink, one of the Transformers, writes about the process on his blog.

“The single most important job that we are here for is to lower and clean up and fix the chandelier in the center part of the sactuary. This project is being led by Mike Navis, Jenn’s husband, who is an electrician. Monday morning the chandelier was lowered to a height where we could take the lower sections off, then support the main lighting section with some wood on the bottom.

Once that was set, we got out all of the scaffolding in the basement of the church, and began building the scaffolding around the areas of the chandelier. Once we hd that in place, we began unscrewing all of the bulbs, then slowly taking the 100 year old glass enclosures off of the chandelier that were around the bulbs. There was about 100 bulbs / glass shields that were taken down. Some people then that afternoon started carefully taking those over to the kitchen area and washing them back to a clean / shining state. Once those were all all out of the way Mike began inspecting all of the chandelier wiring and all of the sockets, testing them to make sure they work, and that they have adequate wiring standards in place.”

After days of hard work, the Transformers have returned the chandelier to the ceiling. All the lightbulbs are in. It’s shiny, shiny. And I’ve never seen the sanctuary look so bright. Not in years.

It is so BRIGHT!!

“Is there a dimmer on that thing?” I asked Pastor Meeter.
“No, but we can control which row of lights is on,” he said.

The Transformers are also cleaning the sanctuary and doing construction and restoration work in other parts of the church.

They’re using the big room adjacent to the santuary as a mess hall/social/rest area. They’ve got tables set up in there, some with Bibles. When I was in there, it was obviously snack time. Chris, the blogger, was blogging away in a private corner. I introduced myself. He said Brooklyn couldn’t be more different from where they’re from. But they’re all having a great time.

Go to Chris’s blog for a detailed narrative of the restoration work the Transformers have been engaged in.