ALBION – Mike Outten and the congregation at North Point Chapel were open to taking on the vacant historic church building in Albion’s Courthouse Square.

But Outten said the church wouldn’t be able to do it on their own. They would need God’s intervention.

North Point on October had no money in its bank account. Yet it had an opportunity to acquire the former United Methodist church building and a next-door parsonage for only $38,000.

Outten said the church was able to raise the funds by January’s closing. The sale still needs a final OK from the Attorney General’s Office.

“In October we said yes to purchasing this building,” Outten told the North Point congregation today, which met for the first time in the former United Methodist building. “Isn’t God awesome?”

In addition to the sale price, North Point is assuming the monthly cost of having wooden beams support the roof in the sanctuary. North Point also agreed to the $22,000 cost to have the company the put up the wooden support system remove the beams when a repair to the sanctuary roof is complete.

A projector displayed worship songs this morning at North Point, including the lyrics to “Man of Sorrows.”

For now, North Point is meeting in a double classroom as part of an addition to the church in 1959. The original church building dates to at least 1860.

Outten noted a historical marker by the church, which said it was formed from circuit riders who spread the Gospel message in the 1800s.

North Point will have an evangelical mission, striving to bring the Gospel message to Albion and Orleans County, while working on the church building and doing good work in the community, Outten said.

But the church has a higher mission, of helping people be drawn to Jesus, and experience the transforming power of God.

Rich Levandowski and Sarah Alexander are part of the worship team that led in singing “Man of Sorrows,” “Nothing but the Blood,” “Amazing Grace,” and “All I have is Christ.”

North Point had been meeting at the Arnold Gregory Office Building, the former Albion hospital. There were about 20 people attending the church, but that number doubled this morning with the launch service on Platt Street.

“We’re encouraged to see people come together to worship and to see new beginnings,” said Al Alexander, an elder in the church who lives in Barker.

Outten will have office hours in the church from Tuesdays through Fridays. On Thursday evenings Outten leads a Bible study at Tim Hortons.

The church will welcome two missions teams to Albion this summer. A group from Mississippi will lead a Vacation Bible School and street ministry from June 24-30. Another group from Georgia will help with evangelism, VBS and a basketball camp from July 24-29.

Samantha Flaherty holds her baby, Brantley, during this morning’s service, which started at 10:30.

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1,000 T-shirts, 5,000 shopping bags donated

Kathy Winans helps Sophia Zambito with her gorilla wig before rehearsal on Wednesday.

ALBION – The drama department used creativity and lots of community support to make the gorilla costumes and the sets for the production of Tarzan, which opens tonight at 7, with shows at noon and 7 p.m. on Saturday.

Each of the 23 gorillas needed about 20 to 30 T-shirts for their costume. The drama department didn’t have the funds to rent gorilla suits for the cast, and those suits also wouldn’t have worked well with the many dancing scenes.

Kathy Winans, the co-director, wanted loose-fitting and sleeveless costumes for the gorillas. She had the idea of cutting up T-shirt in 5-inch strips. She and her many volunteers used a rotary cutter to make the strips. They were sewn onto a mesh shirt underneath.

“The movement gives the illusion of fur,” Winans said.

All of the gorilla costumes have a base of black strips. But Winans didn’t want them to be all black. Each gorilla could pick other colors to help differentiate them on stage. The gorillas have different color highlights, whether purple, white, brown, red, pink, green, yellow, gray, blue and other colors.

Each gorilla costume included layers of 5-inch strips made from donated T-shirts.

(Those colors will help parents and the crowd identify the gorillas during the show. The gorillas will have face makeup on during the shows and would be hard to pick out on stage without the flairs of color.)

Winans needed nearly 1,000 T-shirts to pull off the feat, which includes more T-shirt strands for wigs. The community came through.

“I’d get to school and there would be a bag of T-shirts in my mailbox,” she said.

Each gorilla costume took 10 to 15 hours to make. Winans had her home room students help when they had free time. Winans, a special education teacher, also called on students in her 12:1:1 class to help.

Karen Dibley, the costume coordinator, also was busy formonths making the outfits. Sara Moore, Tara Thom and Marlene Seielstad, parents of gorillas in the cast, also helped make some of the costumes.

Winans started the process last June, after Gary Simboli, the show’s director, announced Tarzan would be the spring musical. Winans checked fabric samples at stores, and didn’t like the price ($18 a yard) or how the cut fabric “moved.”

Provided photos: Students in Kathy Winans’ class are pictured with the cast of Tarzan. The students helped make the costumes and the vines in the production.

It took several months of effort to make the costumes, with the final gorilla outfit finished in February. Winans likes the look of the gorillas.

“I was nervous if it would work,” she said. “But once I saw the colors, I was very excited and knew it would work.”

Saving money on those costumes allowed the drama department to spend more in other areas, particularly for flying equipment, so seven characters could be lifted above the stage. That harness and rigging system cost about $7,000.

These gorillas in the Tarzan show include, from left: Nate Grammatico, Evan Steier, Kate Krieger, Kelsey Froman (a fifth grader in front), Victor Benjovsky, Matilda Erakare and Riley Seielstad.

Simboli had an idea that also took a community effort to pull off. He wanted vines to move on stage and not be stagnant.

He thought tying together plastic grocery bags from Wegmans would do the trick. It took more than 5,000 bags to pull it off with many donated by Wegmans.

The stage crew and Winans’ students also made flowers from shopping bags.

“Pinterest has been our friend,” Winans joked.

Wegmans shopping bags were tied together to create the vines for the jungle scene in Tarzan.

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North Point Chapel will work to preserve building, with bigger focus on serving community

The former United Methodist Church in Albion was vacated two years ago when the congregation left the building. The United Methodists now share a building with the Episcopalians in Albion.

ALBION – The former United Methodist Church building in Albion, a historic site more than 150 years old, will be reopened for church services this Sunday.

The church has been closed for two years since the United Methodists left the building and went to Christ Church, which is owned by the Episcopal church. The two congregations share the site for services.

The United Methodists left their building, facing a daunting challenge, an estimated $1 million to fix a roof that is supported with wooden beams in the sanctuary. The congregation put the building up for sale.

North Point Chapel thinks God still has a plan for the building, which includes many stunning stained-glass windows, a pipe organ and space for more than 250 people.

“I walked in here and I just dropped,” said Mike Outten, pastor of North Point.

It was the windows or the architecture that stunned Outten. It was all of the empty seats. He imagined the sanctuary full of earnest Christians. The church, like so many in the United States, seems way too big for the congregations today.

“There used to be people who sat in these seats and believed in Jesus Christ,” Outten said. “I look around and I see 250 saints singing to God.”

The Good Shepherd Window is stunning ecclesiastical artwork inside the church.

North Point Chapel will open the building to the public for coffee at 10 a.m. this Sunday, followed by a church service at 10:30.

The service will be in the Sunday School wing of the church, in what was a double classroom. Outten said the space could fit about 75 to 80 people.

He will preach the sermon and the church’s contemporary music team will lead in worship.

“We’re here to meet people where they’re at,” Outten said today, giving a tour of the church. “Jesus didn’t look at people’s exterior, but at their hearts. This building is just a tool. We will show people that we care for them and love them.”

North Point is a new church that has been meeting since last April at the Arnold Gregory Office Complex on South Main Street. About 20 people have been attending services at Arnold Gregory.

The church is part of the Southern Baptist Convention. North Point has the support of the High Point Community Church in Pembroke and the Ridge Wood Bible Church in Lockport on Route 104. High Point is the church that paid for fireworks in Albion on July 5, as well as hot dogs and family activities for four years until 2015.

North Point was active at last year’s Strawberry Festival, running a face painting booth and doing a lot of the garbage cleanup. They were a big boost to the festival’s volunteers.

Outten, a Gasport resident, is a third-generation bricklayer who had his own construction company. Northern Exposures Inc. is now run by his son.

Outten felt a call to the ministry and took on-line theology courses from Liberty University for five years. He did his coursework in the mornings form 5 to 8 a.m., went to work, and did his course reading at night. He graduated in 2014.

He believes in the power of God to transform lives, and neighborhoods. He sees many vacant houses in Albion, or homes in need of significant repair. He would be interested in the church helping with neighborhood revitalization, acquiring some houses, fixing them up, and selling to families.

North Point Chapel will have its first service this Sunday at the former United Methodist Church. The service will be in the Sunday School wing where there was a double classroom. Coffee will be served at 10 a.m. with the service to start at 10:30.

He is open to where God wants to lead North Point. But Outten said he didn’t initially feel that way. He thought his ministry would be in Medina. Outten thought North Point was destined for that village. He would stop in that community, and walk the streets, praying for the residents.

God, however, had a different plan for the new pastor, Outten said.

Two of his sons have taken their driver’s tests in Albion, starting at a spot next to the former United Methodist Church at the corner of East State and Platt streets. Outten’s wife called him both times, to tell him about the glorious church edifice.

North Point is putting down new carpet in the classroom wing of the church. There are about seven rooms that have been repainted, from a light green. Outten also added a quarter-inch of dry wall to cover wainscoting that was cracked.

Two years ago, while their son was taking his driver’s test, Mrs. Outten noticed the church building was for sale. Her husband was reluctant. He was still thinking Medina for the new church.

But he was confronted with a passage from the Bible in Philippians 2:14-16: “Do everything without grumbling or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, “children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation.” Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky as you hold firmly to the word of life. And then I will be able to boast on the day of Christ that I did not run or labor in vain.”

Outten said he needed to “cease his grumbling and complaining” and be open to what God had in store for Albion and the North Point Chapel.

“I realized that God was calling me here,” he said.

Outten looked at sites in Albion for the church. He didn’t want to be in an office building. Other sites, the former OTB and building where NAPA Auto Parts was located on Hamilton Street, seemed too costly, he said.

He was drawn to the United Methodist building. North Point is still waiting for the sale to go through. The two churches have agreed on a price and contract, but a final OK needs to given by the Attorney General’s Office. That was expected in January.

Outten said he has a plan for stabilizing the roof. The sanctuary will be off limits for the short term. First the church is working on the classrooms and office. Outten said the building won’t be forsaken.

“It’s going to be a lot of work,” the pastor said. “God wants us to bring it back. We won’t do it ourselves. The Lord will be our strength.”

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Bloody knuckles, ankle burns – ‘absolutely worth it’

Matilda Erakare, right, speaks with the gorilla Kerchak, Tarzan’s father (played by Victor Benjovsky). The gorillas spend much of the show hunched over on their knuckles.

ALBION – This week’s production of Tarzan by the Albion High School may be the most physically taxing show ever by the school.

Characters move about the stage hunched over, leaning on their knuckles. Many of the gorillas, and Tarzan himself, have developed thick callouses on their fingers, which sometimes bleed.

They have bruises on their knees and burns on their ankles.

“It’s absolutely worth it,” said Matilda Erakare, who plays the mother gorilla, Kala. “We’ve never done a show like this before.”

The cast includes 23 gorillas as well as a Tarzan. When they started rehearsing in January, Director Gary Simboli had them doing the awkward gorilla gait, putting their weight on their knuckles.

Simboli knew that first month would be the toughest for the students, getting their bodies used to the demands of the show.

“They have had to train their bodies for this show,” Simboli said. “They are walking over, hunched over in an awkward gait, while speaking and doing their lines.”

He had students in their auditions try to walk naturally like gorillas.

“I couldn’t do it,” Simboli said. “We started right at the beginning with rehearsals and had them doing what they needed to be doing.”

Enoch Martin plays Tarzan. He and all the gorillas get a workout every rehearsal.

Evan Steier plays one of the gorillas. His fingers have developed callouses and many nicks and abrasions. He has stamina as a long-distance runner for the school. But even he said the show is hard on the body.

“It all depends on how much you put into it,” he said.

Simboli said the entire cast has poured themselves into the roles.

Enoch Martin shows his dinged up knuckles before rehearsal on Wednesday.

Enoch Martin plays Tarzan and his hands show the toll of the playing the character. His fingers that look swollen with a host of scrapes and callouses.

Martin said it was a difficult start during the rehearsals, getting used to gorilla gait. But he said his hands and body have adjusted.

The students last week started practicing on the main stage in the Middle School Auditorium. It has a much harder floor than the Large Group Instruction room in the high school. That stage has thicker padding. The main stage in the Middle School has a thinner dance cushion.

With less “give” on the the stage, the gorillas and Tarzan have needed to be strong mentally.

“We’ve never had a show this taxing,” Simboli said. “They are on their hands and knees singing and with the fight scenes.”

The performances are 7 p.m. on Friday, and noon and 7 p.m. on Saturday.

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