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NEWS
Church to emphasize fitness, too
The Rev. Dennis Strawn stands inside the costruction site of a fitness center that will be a new addition to First Baptist Church in Ironton. The $1.3 million project will be adjacent to the church at 304 S. 5th St., Ironton.
Purchase this photoIRONTON -- First Baptist Church of Ironton wants to take care if its members, body and soul. The church is in the midst of a $1.3 million project to build a faith-and-fitness center adjacent to the church at 304 S. 5th St., Ironton. The center will have a full-size gymnasium and walking track that will be open to the community once it's finished in May.
"This is another way to reach people," said the Rev. Dennis Strawn, senior pastor at First Baptist Church in Ironton. "We want to take care of people body and soul. The body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. We should be taking care of the physical aspects as well as our relationship with God."
The church is among several in the Tri-State Area putting an emphasis on the body along with its spiritual offerings. Some of those have come about after media reports late last year identified the Huntington-Ashland metropolitan area as among the nation's unhealthiest in terms of obesity, diabetes and heart disease.
Earlier this year at Christ Temple Church at 2400 Johnstown Road in Huntington, members of the choir and band and other volunteers agreed to participate in a 10-week program to lose weight and get healthier. Other churches have sponsored classes and workout programs.
The project at First Baptist in Ironton started early last fall and was in the works well before the media reports came out about the region's health.
The walking track at the faith and fitness center will be open to local seniors to walk in the morning to get their exercise, Strawn said. The center also should provide an active outlet for kids, he said.
"The kids say there's nothing to do in Ironton," Strawn said. "There's a real need to address the need of young people. They have to go to Huntington or Portsmouth to get in basketball leagues. We also have people who drive over to Ashland to walk in the mall."
Ironton does not have any sizable fitness center, such as a YMCA, as some other cities in the Tri-State do.
The faith and fitness center also is being designed to meet Red Cross specifications to house people in cases of flood or fire, said Ralph Carrico, chairman of the church board at First Baptist. It will have kitchen facilities and showers, he said.
"We wanted to offer something to the community," Carrico said. "I look at it as a way to urge people to come to church."
People might come to the church to use the track or the gym or in an emergency and then end up going to church services there, he said.
The church also has had sixth-grade students in the Ironton school district use its building the past two years while a new Ironton Middle School is built in North Ironton.
The front of the center will be on Vernon Street and is located adjacent to the main branch of the Briggs-Lawrence County Public Library.
The church also has after-school programs for first- to sixth-grade students during the week, Strawn said.
About 100 first-, second- and third-grade students attend Adventure Club, an after-school program that runs for about two hours on Tuesdays.
"We give them a snack, play games and have a Bible story," he said.
About 40 to 50 students attend an after-school program for fourth-, fifth- and sixth-grade students on Tuesdays, he said.
"We're here to share the Gospel," Strawn said. "This is a way to do that in a practical way and in a way where kids will be safe."
