Kevin Taylor doesn’t like going to his church too often these days.

“Every time I see it, I say, ‘Wow, wow, wow,’” he said.

Only the frame remains of Harvest of Praise Ministry, the church Taylor and his wife, Debra, founded a few years ago. It was one of two churches either destroyed or heavily damaged when a tornado struck the Glenn Heights area the night of December 26.

The other is Ovilla Road Church of the Nazarene, which is in Red Oak but almost within sight of Taylor’s church in Glenn Heights. Donald T. Shields Elementary, which suffered heavy damage, lies between them.

“There was no mourning,” Pastor Ron Adams said. “We just jumped straight into the repair.”

Adams’ church is in better shape than Taylor’s. The sanctuary at the Church of the Nazarene was destroyed, but much of the rest of the structure remains and is fixable, Adams said.

The pastors have leaned on each other — as well as other nearby churches — to move on.

Adams and Taylor had worked together before the storm and are even closer now, they said.

“He checked in on us that night,” Adams said of Taylor. “We stayed in communication and resolved to be in unity.

“Just to see the denominational walls come down has been special. Jesus said to Peter, ‘I am going to build my church.’ He didn’t say ‘churches,’ but we as people have come along and built divisions. Not anymore.”

Eventually, the sanctuary of Ovilla Road Church of the Nazarene will be rebuilt in a different part of the church and will face Ovilla Road. The space that once was the sanctuary will be home to three classrooms and a playground.

“It can’t happen fast enough,” said Adams, who also is a member of the Glenn Heights City Council. “I’m itching to see it go up again.”

Until that happens, both ministers are hosting services at temporary locations — in nearby church space.

“You hate to see this happen, but everybody is optimistic and looking forward to the new sanctuary,” said Taylor, whose congregation includes about 200 members.

Until the new facility is built on the same site as the old one, Taylor’s church meets in the Family Life Center of First Baptist Church in Red Oak. The cost of rebuilding has been estimated at $700,000 to $1 million, Taylor said.

“I’m so encouraged by what we are getting ready to do,” Taylor said.

Adams’ cost estimate has been tagged at about $750,000, he said. In the meantime, his 110-member congregation meets at Ovilla United Methodist Church’s historic chapel, which was built in the 1880s.

Both churches were covered by insurance.

Glenn Heights officials estimate the tornado left an estimated $10 million in residential damage, communications director Millicent Williams said.

Many homes have been reduced to slabs, but others still have debris in front of them because their owners still haven’t been found, Williams said.

Aid was slow in coming to the city of 13,000 because few people had heard of it, Williams said.

“We’ve been called ‘that area just to the north of Midlothian’ or ‘north of Ovilla’ or, ‘That’s Red Oak,’” Williams said. “Once people knew about us and realized we were an actual city, then help was forthcoming and there were fewer barriers.”

In addition, 14 residents were extracted from structures but no one was hurt, Williams said.

Taylor was in the church when the storm hit, getting some tables to donate to a function. His wife sat outside in a truck parked near the front entrance.

“There was thunder and lightning when I got here, but no rain,” Taylor said. “I went inside, turned the alarm off, and started hearing a sound like dirt being thrown against something. Then the doors started moving inward and twisting.”

Taylor remembered shouting to his wife: “Stay in the truck, stay in the truck!”

He used one of the tables to shield himself and got down on his knees and crawled toward the sanctuary and the other end of the building, where he figured he’d be safer, he said.

“I thought I had made it down the hallway, but once it was over, I saw that I had only crawled a couple of feet,” he said.

Although steel beams and other pieces of the church fell in around him, Taylor wasn’t pinned. But on the other side of the church, where he thought he would be safest, the walls had completely crumbled inward.

His wife was jostled in the truck but wasn’t hurt, Taylor said.

“It was so dark that you really couldn’t see anything until the next morning,” Taylor said. “When I finally saw it, I thought, ‘How did I come out of this?’”

Adams and his wife were at a Mavericks game the night the storm hit, but they left as soon as their phones were barraged by text messages.

“The sanctuary has fallen,” one said.

--Republished with permission from The Dallas Morning News