The quaint, rural look of the small country church for which Union Church Road was named more than a century ago belies the growing and vibrant Presbyterian congregation it houses.

The Rev. Peter de Vries, head pastor at Old Union Presbyterian Church in Adams Township, said the open basement of the church serves as the Christian education department, fellowship hall and a meeting place for several church programs and groups. It also serves as the secretary's office, which consists of a desk in one corner near a supply closet.

De Vries said the steep steps from the upstairs sanctuary to the all-purpose basement are nearly impossible for older and very young members to traverse.

"We wanted to design a building that would help us do what we are doing now and potentially do new things," he said.

So after a three-year capital campaign, de Vries sat down with architects to map out an addition.

"We don't want to be a new church, we want to be the church that we are, only better," he said.

The result is a 7,120-square-foot, single-story addition planned for the area east of the church that is currently the parking lot. The multi-purpose hall will house large and small meetings, dinners and other church events. Two new bathrooms are included in the plans.

A 40-foot hallway running from the existing church to the new building will connect the two structures.

A spacious entrance to the church will be included in the hallway connector. De Vries is excited about the large lobby that will accompany the new entrance, as the current one often becomes clogged with people coming and going. The new hallway also will eliminate a bothersome five stairs from the current door to the sanctuary level, as it will be connected to the latter.

Parking to access the new hall and the existing sanctuary and basement will be on acreage bought by the church at the corner of Union Church and Cashdollar roads. A gradually sloping walkway will lead the faithful from the gravel lot to the hall or church.

The new hall will increase the seating capacity from 130 to 140 in the current church basement to between 175 and 200. A new kitchen will be included.

"A couple of our kitchen people saw the plans and thought they'd died and gone to heaven," said de Vries.

The new structure also will allow the choir room now housed in a corner of the sanctuary to move to the church basement, paving the way for a redesign of the sanctuary to accommodate about 70 more worshippers on Sunday.

The congregation has raised $400,000 of the $700,000 construction cost, and will soon engage in a "debt-free in three" campaign to pay off the $300,000 loan incurred for the project in three years.

The original Old Union Church was constructed of bricks in 1839. A fire in 1905 devastated the building, and the current brick church was built in 1906. An addition was added to the east side of the church in 1958.

Groundbreaking for the current expansion project will take place in the coming weeks.