Bible Baptist Church breaks ground for new auditorium
(Left to right) Mike Hager, Tim Koslowski, Jim Faulkner, Jesse Byers, Ben Payne, Andy Doll and Lindsey Timmerman shoveled the first clods of dirt for the Bible Baptist Church’s auditorium construction project. (Steve Van Kooten/Courier Press)
Photo from the Jan. 10, 1973 Courier Press featuring the Bible Baptist Church, which was newly constructed at the time.
By Steve Van Kooten
If you’ve been on the north end of the Prairie du Chien area this past week, you may have noticed the heavy machinery working on the Bible Baptist Church grounds.
After a groundbreaking ceremony held at noon on March 16, construction workers began trenching the ground outside of the church to put in a temporary road.
The road will allow work vehicles to access the location for a new 11,000 square-foot auditorium.
According to Pastor Andy Doll, the new facility is a necessity for the congregation.
“We have outgrown our current auditorium. We are adding chairs every Sunday morning, and Sunday nights are full. We are at capacity, and there’s a need to reach more,” he said. “Right now, our auditorium seats about 225.”
The new auditorium will seat an estimated 400 people. Increasing the capacity will prevent splitting people into different services, according to Doll.
“I want to have a church family,” he said. “I don’t want to divide that into different services, and our church family feels the same.”
The church worked with architects for the past two years to explore different possibilities for the facility and came up with a satisfactory design approximately a year ago. Along with increasing the capacity, making the space more accommodating for parishioners and providing dedicated space for other church activities are considered high priorities.
“When we were talking about capacity, I said to the architect, ‘Guys, it’s got to be comfortable; we cannot have it like it is now. We need a little more space,’” Doll said.
He continued, “It will increase our capacity for our Sunday services; it will increase our capacity for our Sunday school hour — we have a number of classes that meet at the 10 a.m. hour all throughout the church. We have a couple of classes that meet in the Christian School right now because we don’t have an actual dedicated classroom for that. So, this will give us the ability to have that.”
The cost for the project is approximately $3 million and is expected to be completed in January 2026. He clarified that the cost does not account for additional needs, such as furnishings, audio and visual equipment and other necessities for church services. NCI-Roberts Construction out of Madison is working as the project’s general contractor.
“We’re trying to do as much of it locally as we can,” Doll said. “We’ve tried to have as many [subcontractors] as we can have locally.”
He noted that the church already has local subcontractors for HVAC, concrete and electrical work, and they are pursuing other local outfits for other parts of the project.
