Old Time Baptist Church purchased the vacant lot at the corner of Route 62 and Hickox Road in the town of Hamburg back in 1999.  Within a couple of weeks from purchasing the property a sign was erected indicating the future home of Old Time Baptist Church.  Pastor Guadagno and the church began to wait on the Lord’s timing as to when to build.  With the church experiencing steady growth, the Lord directed Pastor Guadagno in 2005 that it was time to start the preliminary stages of a building project. 

In April, 2007 the church held a “Stewardship Conference” as a first step.  Pastor Rick Sowell from Toledo, Ohio was the special speaker.  This generated a lot of enthusiasm among the members and the entire church began to earnestly pray for God’s specific will in regards to the building project.

In September, 2007 we began working with David Koppelman with KSA Planners and Architects to begin design on a new church facility.  Mr. Koppelman asked for input from the church staff and many hours of planning, designing and updating would take place over the next two and half months.  A final draft of a preliminary site plan and floor plan was agreed upon by the church and the architect.  It also took several staff meetings to formulate a fundraising campaign. 

A very special “Vision Night” was planned and took place on December 2, 2007 to present the entire building project to the church.  Outside friends of our ministry as well as our pastoral staff took different segments of the project and spoke to the church.  A $400,000 initial Capital Campaign was presented to the church with over $325,000 in pledges coming in that night.  Additional pledges of over $80,000 came in within the next week.  The events of these couple of weeks really served to give the church a clear vision of the future and that God wanted to take the church to the next level.

The year 2008 was a very busy, aggressive year for the building project.  Our architect began more detailed drawings in January.  Soil testing was done in the late spring.  Land, boundary and topographical surveys took place.  A civil engineering firm, C&S Companies of Buffalo was retained.  Regular meetings of our pastoral staff and building project committee took place as well.  There were also some changes made to the original floor plan with the addition of a multi-purpose area.  We began consultation with Jim Ritchie of Fundamental Baptist Construction Services and he was eventually named the project manager.  The building fund moved towards meeting its goal.  A big push in July brought in a little over $100,000 in cash and another push in November & December brought in an additional $65,000 helping us inch towards our goal.  In the fall of 2008 Mr. Koppelman began dialogue with the Town of Hamburg in regards to building codes, zoning, etc. to provide us with more specific and detailed direction as to how to proceed.

Things really began moving at a faster pace with the start of 2009.  To begin the official financing phase, in February we opened lines of communication with several banks.  After the initial meetings, we narrowed our search down to three banks and began to pursue financing.  March brought our first appearance before the town planning board to start the approval process.  We have been on the agenda for every planning board meeting since, each time growing closer and closer to approval.  Our public hearing portion of the process took place in May and a second public hearing took place in June.

Currently, with the public hearings behind us, everything now is in the hands of the planning board and we look forward to the next several weeks.  The church is very aware that God is blessing this project by the miracles that have taken place and how God has provided in so many ways!