St. Matthew's United Church of Christ celebrated its new expansion wing over the weekend with an abundance of food, music, merrymaking and more.

"We're celebrating the completion of our new addition, and we're dedicating it in worship tomorrow," the Rev. Suzanne Brooks-Cope said. "We're also celebrating homecoming - we invited folks who are no longer in the area to come back and celebrate with us. We're going to honor some of our oldest members with certificates later on tonight."The 237-year-old Kunkletown mainstay held its dedication-celebration dinner on Saturday, with members providing an assortment of pasta dishes, casseroles, slow-cooked meats, homemade cakes, pies and cobblers."The church has been around since 1779," Brooks-Cope said. "It was a log cabin originally, then they outgrew the log cabin and they built a stone church, but it was small. The foundations of this church are built on that old stone church. Then they built the two-story part of it back in the early 1900s."A hurricane in the 1950s dealt significant damage to the building, tearing a corner of the roof off and ruining an organ, but the church persevered with reconstruction."About every 100 years, we build," Brooks-Cope said. "We finally built our new addition, which has classrooms, offices, an elevator, a choir room, and a full basement. They've been dreaming about this addition for about 30 years."Following dinner, church secretary Rose Arace showed a slideshow presentation spanning nearly a century of the church's legacy, featuring historic photographs of the building, former pastors, sacramental events, socials and more."It felt like you were part of something that's been for a really, really, really long time, something special," Arace said in regard to compiling the pictures.Brooks-Cope's husband, Scott Brooks-Cope, also a pastor, played a rendition of one of his favorite religious tunes, Ken Medema's "What Am I Doing Here?" Though the song may harbor somewhat of a cynical tone in the beginning, by the end the singer finds comfort and unity in his congregation.Next up, music director Daniel Smale took to the keys, with Suzanne Brooks-Cope handling the vocals and direction for a series of hymns. The audience joined in for recitations of some notable favorites, including a passionate performance of "Amazing Grace," with the women of the congregation fielding the first verse, the men taking the second, and the whole group uniting in the end."There's a lot of people here who need to sign up for the choir. They're really very good," Brooks-Cope said after the last hymn.Church council President Dan Wunder personally thanked the numerous members who were integral to the expansion, emphasizing that the new wing was the product of their tireless efforts.Membership longevity awards honoring those who had been with St. Matthew's for 50 years or more were announced, with personalized certificates distributed to the loyal worshippers. The presentation of Leon Barlieb's award, citing nearly 88 years with the church, was met with wild applause."I was baptized here, confirmed here, and married here. I've been here almost 88 years. I'm going to be 88 in two weeks, and I've been here all my lifetime," Barlieb said.UCC Penn Northeast Conference minister the Rev. Alan Miller took up the microphone next, cracking jokes about Jesus' affinity for parties and turning water into wine, all to riotous laughter. Toward the end of his speech, Miller focused on the key to a successful church: Embracing the entire community and not falling into the trap of excluding those who are not part of the congregation."The real celebration of your hard work, of all these new facilities, of all that you have done so well together, will be how you use this to take the Gospel to the unchurched in your community, and how you reach out to their needs through these facilities," Miller said.Family and friends, old and new, graciously saw each other off at the conclusion of the evening, with the official dedication of the expansion set for Sunday morning."The night was fantastic, everybody contributed. It was nice to see it come together. The nice part was, we didn't know how many were coming, and you can see we filled the place. It was really a joyous occasion," Wunder said.