Five months ago, young couple Eric and Tiffani Wachtman moved to Aiken with their baby daughter, Isabella, hoping to find a modern church service like the one they left in Florida.
They found just what they were looking for at St. John's United Methodist Church in downtown Aiken.
St. John's added a modern, contemporary service and music about eight years ago, and on Sunday, consecrated its new Faith Center on the campus.
"We really like the pastor and enjoy the service," Tiffani said. "It's nice to see that the church is growing and expanding and branching out to new people."
That's exactly what St. John's hopes to accomplish - a chance to reach new people, said Dr. Tim McClendon, the church's pastor.
The new building will serve in many ways - worship, youth, teaching and fellowship, he said.
"The Faith Center will give us the opportunity to add extra services and offer the Gospel of Jesus Christ in relevant ways to an inquisitive world," McClendon said in a press release.
With the formal introduction of the Faith Center, the sanctuary services will continue be held at 8:30 and 11 a.m. in the gym, until the main sanctuary update is completed.
The modern service will start in the Faith Center at 9:02 a.m., in recognition of Psalms 9:02 - "I will be glad and rejoice in thee. I will sing praise to thy name, O thou Most High."
The church's band is the 9:02 Band. The verse brings to heart the more modern music the Faith Center offers.
More than 200 people of all ages attended the service on Sunday.
Jane Timmerman is the modern service's music director, as well as a vocalist with Juli Davis in the praise band. When discussions began about a new service, both immediately agreed to become part of a contemporary service.
People laughed about it for a long time, Timmerman said. Yet the former pastor, The Rev. George Howle, previously said that if St. John's got such a program started, people would come.
"He was absolutely right," said Timmerman. "But I didn't want it to be a light show. The worship is similar to the (traditional) service, but with more modern music."
The band performed three songs - "Holy is the Lord," "Days of Elijah" and "How Great is our God." The band offered those songs in 2007 on its first 9:02 service in the gym. Its members chose to do so again.
Timmerman readily agrees that the music of the past was modern at that time - certainly that of John Wesley in the 18th century. Wesley is credited with founding the Methodist denomination.
"We are so blessed today," she said. "Our foremost job is to make sure we bring people in."
The consecration of the Faith Center is a day of rejoicing, McClendon said.
It will offer a sanctuary for spiritual enrichment and study, and St. John's is a church for all ages, he said in a press release.
"It excels in doing whatever it takes, including this new building, to remain constantly at the forefront of doing effective ministry to the world," McClendon said.
Catherine Stapleton Nance, St. John's music director, admits she never expected years ago the church would introduce more modern music as part of a new service. Now the Faith Center provides a home for it, and Nance is glad to see that older church members and visitors have embraced it, too.
The Faith Center is itself a home. The doors entering the sanctuary were in the home of Ola Hitt, a legendary Aiken resident who died at the age of 103 in 2013.
Hitt was best known as the "Mother of Veterans," seeing to the needs of those from World War II and the Korean War.
Hitt gave the church first refusal of the property. Its members purchased it, and the Faith Center stands on a portion of it.
Those attending the Faith Center will walk through two French doors from Hitt's historic home.
It's like "walking through the doors of her dining room - doors where many a veteran found a home," Nance said.
The Faith Center formally opened on Sunday. The day before, a couple contacted the church with a frantic request.
Would McClendon marry them in the sanctuary that very day? He would and, indeed, a wedding took place even before the center was consecrated.
"We'll hold a service every evening, do whatever we can to help minister those who need us," McClendon said.
The church is at 104 Newberry St. S.W.
For more information, call 803-648-6891 or visit www.stjaiken.org.
Senior writer Rob Novit is the Aiken Standard's education reporter and has been with the newspaper since September 2001. He is a native of Walterboro and majored in journalism at the University of Georgia.