Temple moving into vacant Trinity building

The congregation of the Temple Baptist Church in Tucumcari will be moving later this month into the vacant Trinity Baptist Church building.

Brian Hughes, pastor of the Temple Baptist at 124 W. Aber St., said in a phone interview the church’s move to 881 S. First St. will be complete by Aug. 27. Sunday school is scheduled for 10 a.m., with worship service at 11 a.m.

Hughes said the church closed the deal on acquiring the Trinity Baptist building on Aug. 1. He declined to disclose a purchase price.

Trinity Baptist Church closed about a year ago after its membership declined to less than a half-dozen.

Ideas for the building — including a faith-based job-training facility and an arts center — surfaced but apparently never materialized.

Hughes said his church began to seriously look at the building about six months ago.

“We’ve been wanting to move for years,” he said, adding its Aber Street building had issues structurally and space-wise. Temple Baptist’s congregation contains about 40 members.

Temple Baptist held one service in its new home on July 26. Since then, Hughes and other church members have been working to fix it up.

“It does have some issues,” he said. “But it has a lot of potential and is a lot better than our current building.”

Hughes said Temple Baptist will be “getting rid” of its old space either by putting it up for sale or transferring it to an interested party.