The new Talladega Family Life Center set to open Sunday promises to be a splendid addition to the city’s meeting facilities. It will house a gymnasium with a raised stage, a huge banquet room, a commercial kitchen and a game room. It will also offer daycare for children and adults and a variety of counseling services. And it will start and house a Talladega Regional Hall of Fame, recognizing Southern history, cultural enrichment and community enablers.

This is not, however, a taxpayer-funded municipal building. It is a long-anticipated addition to Mt. Canaan Baptist Church. The congregation has been working on the project for more than a decade and acquired the Battle Street property in 2005 after Wehadkee Yarn Mills’ old Chinnabee plant was razed. The church broke ground on the new construction in November 2009.

The public will get its first look inside the building on Sunday in an open house that begins at 1 p.m.

While it is neither required nor expected for a church to make such a facility available to all the residents of a city, it is entirely appropriate. Churches, after all, are successful only to the extent to which they serve their communities.

“We want to offer programs and services for the youth, our senior citizens and the community held in spaces that are safe, encourage a sense of community, fellowship and joy, and that are reflective of God’s love for how we treat one another,” Mt. Canaan Pastor Horace Patterson explained.

Congratulations to Dr. Patterson and the Mt. Canaan congregation on envisioning such a facility and seeing it through to completion. It is a shining example of how a church can serve its entire community, not just its own members.