North Tulsa Church Demolished After Christmas Eve Fire

A North Tulsa church is being demolished Monday, almost 3 months after a fire destroyed the church's sanctuary.

On Christmas Eve, 2011, thick smoke poured from the Cornerstone Free Will Baptist Church in the 4900 block of East Latimer.  The fire destroyed the building and most of what was inside.

"You've got the future in your hands. You've got us in the palm of your hands," said pastor Ben Langley.

The pastor's prayer later inspired a child's curiosity.

"The crane part looks like a big dinosaur head," remarked 8-year-old Daniel Burk.

If the track hoe's a dinosaur, pastor Ben Langley's the paleontologist - digging not for bones but for a brick.

"It supposedly has the letter in it that - they wrote something on it - the builders did. The pastor and someone else," Pastor Langley said.

It's the cornerstone of Cornerstone Church.

"I knew it was going to be a long shot," he said.

But this church knows how to beat the odds. Rebuilding from the ashes after a fire destroyed the sanctuary on Christmas Eve.

"A lot of tears. A lot of crying. I can still remember that initial feeling when we pulled up. It was like, take your breath away," Pastor Langley said.

It's the kind of tragedy that can test the faith of even the strongest believers.

"The Lord's going to open up another door for us. There are lots of memories in the building so it's hard to see it go down," said church member Michael Bence.

But if you look closely, every so often the track hoe tumbles bits of debris into the shape of a perfect cross.

"The cross will always stand. It's God's way of showing us we need to relocate," said 10-year-old Halee Burk.

As for that forgotten piece of the past, Pastor Langley found a scrap of paper. It might be from the cornerstone, it might be just a piece of trash.

Heads are held high. Because it's not a brick that's the cornerstone of a church, after all... it's the people.

It turned out a faulty electrical motor in the building's furnace started the fire. No one was injured.

On Christmas Day, the congregation met in the church's Family Life Center next door and have been meeting there ever since.

The congregation plans to rebuild at the same location.

12/25/2011 Related Story: Tulsa Church Recovering From Christmas Eve Fire