Two Boulder churches are undergoing spring renovations.
Following weeks of fixes, the new and improved Boulder Valley Baptist Church is set to hold its first public service on Easter Sunday at the former Grace Church on Hauser Street, while Boulder’s long-running Life Church is nearing the end of a four-year renovation project.
When Boulder Valley Baptist pastor Stormy Tuffield first walked into the building last summer, the main worship room, or sanctuary, looked much as it had when it was built in the early 1980s: light green carpeting, wooden pews and a four-foot-wide wall opening as the only entry point.
“It was in really great shape,” Tuffield said. “But it was just – it had the green carpet and some pews in it.”
Tuffield is the pastor of Boulder Valley Baptist, a new congregation overseen by Helena’s Big Sky Fellowship. When Grace Church closed in May 2024, the Treasure State Baptist Association assumed ownership and soon entrusted Big Sky with the space to establish a new church.
After detailing his vision for the church last June, Tuffield invited a small group to Wednesday evening Bible study starting in October. Before the church began services, that group asked to renovate the space.
They replaced the green carpeting with gray patterned carpet squares and repainted the walls beige, to help the space feel homier. They enclosed the original sanctuary entryway and converted it into a sound booth, with wider openings cut into the walls on either side. Most of the wooden pews, hand-built by original Grace Church members, were replaced with cushioned chairs, though a handful of the originals remain.
The work came to roughly $16,000, funded through donations from regional partner churches. The new chairs were the single biggest expense, at around $7,000, according to Tuffield. Bible study group volunteers, and others sent out by Big Sky, did most of the labor.
The work was nearly finished as of March 16. Other than minor touch-ups, the last remaining task is applying the trimming that caps the front edge of steps, known as a stair nose piece, for the steps leading up to the stage.
“I really would like to have it all done by our launch, which is going to be Easter Sunday,” Tuffield said. The April 5 service is set for 10 a.m. and will include worship songs, a sermon and a fellowship gathering inside the building afterward.
“My hope would be that someone who’s showing up, whether they are believers in Jesus Christ or don’t know who Jesus Christ is, they’d be able to come here and be welcomed warmly,” Tuffield said. “And then be able to leave recognizing that there is a group of people here in Boulder who love the Lord and love our community.”
When Tuffield first arrived in Boulder last year he vowed to take his time, allowing a congregation to build before holding services – and he has been true to his word. Boulder Valley’s Easter service will be its first open to the public, even as a congregation has quietly begun to emerge.
The Bible study group that formed last October now gathers every Sunday morning at the church. Tuffield said he hadn’t publicly advertised the services; people just started showing up on their own, some simply because they saw cars in the parking lot.
After Easter, Tuffield said the church plans to resume prayer walks – organized walks through Boulder and surrounding areas to pray for the community and look for ways the church can serve – something he started last summer before pausing for winter.
Tuffield envisions the space serving the broader community through classroom programming, conferences and simulcast events. “To see just our church be able to love on and support the community that we’re in to the best of our ability – that’s really our heart,” he said.
Tuffield noted that Boulder Valley Baptist follows First Baptist Boulder and Grace Community Church at the Hauser Street location. “What we’re doing here is part of a longer story of the Lord doing work here in our community,” he said. “It’s just a privilege to be a part of that story.”
Life Church, which has been in Boulder for more than 40 years, is also renovating, though it does not expect to finish by Easter. Pastor Duane Weinmeister, who has led the congregation for 14 years, said exterior improvements began about four years ago.
“We had to paint the outside because it was in really poor condition,” he said.
A contractor repainted the exterior green, replacing the dark brown, laid metal roofing over the existing shingles and added new exterior light fixtures. On the ground floor, workers replaced the original rust-colored carpet with square-patterned gray, applied fresh paint – off-white in the main room and various colors in the surrounding rooms – and refreshed the kitchen.
“The original cupboards were out of somebody’s house when they built the building, because they got new cupboards,” Weinmeister said. “That was 40-plus years ago.”
The kitchen redo included new cupboards, flooring, lighting and paint, and an expansion, via the creation of a doorway, into an adjacent room used for Sunday school.
Weinmeister’s focus has now shifted upstairs, where the original sanctuary rust-red carpet is set to be replaced with square-patterned light gray late next month. The walls are getting a fresh coat of paint and the rooms new light fixtures.
Life Church’s renovations have thus far cost more than $60,000, funded through donations, and the work has been carried out by a mix of contractors and volunteers, including church members and others from the community.
Despite the unfinished sanctuary, Life Church’s Easter plan remains unchanged. The day will begin with a sunrise service on Boulder Hill, followed by a potluck breakfast, 10 a.m. worship, and Easter egg hunt for children. Weinmeister said the tradition has been going on for at least as long as he has been there.
Beyond Easter Sunday, the church runs several programs, including a children’s church and a youth group of around 20 kids. It also recently launched a community outreach dinner event in Jefferson City, with plans to bring a similar event to Basin.
“We want to just help people to find Christ in whatever way we can,” said Weinmeister. “[Our mission] is to help people be healthy, which leads to healthy marriages, to healthy families, to healthy communities. We believe that this happens by people having a relationship with Jesus Christ.”
