ST. LOUIS -- The Radiant Life in Christ Apostolic Church at 1706 McLaran Avenue was gutted by fire Monday night.
No one was injured in the fire, which started before 10 p.m. The church is in the city's North Pointe neighborhood. Fire investigators couldn't determine the cause of the fire.
Capt. Dan Sutter of the St. Louis Fire Department said the first firefighters who arrived saw heavy fire coming from the sanctuary.
Stained-glass windows had burst, and air was feeding the flames. Some of the fire had spread to an office or annex attached to the church. Heat from the fire melted some of the exterior on a home that sits behind the church.
Firefighters quickly knocked down the two-alarm fire and stopped it from spreading to other properties.
After being up most of the night, church founder and pastor Illona W. Dickson was too exhausted to speak to a reporter this morning, said her husband, Reginald Dickson. But the associate pastor, Samuel Patterson, spoke about what they have lost.
"A lot of special things inside, a very special cross that was handmade sat in front of the sanctuary by the pulpit," Patterson said. "Everything in the sanctuary is gone."
The brick walls stood, but the interior was gutted.
"It's burned pretty bad," Patterson said. "I haven't seen the total details though."
He saw it in the dark overnight when fire crews finished fighting the blaze, and Patterson plans to return today to see it in the daylight.
No one was at the church when the fire began, Patterson said. Church leaders are left wondering what to do next and where to meet. The church normally holds prayer service on Tuesday nights, services on Wednesday nights, musician rehearsals on Saturdays and services on Sundays.
"We're in process of putting together a plan for what are we going to do," Patterson said, who has been with the church about 17 years.
When Dickson founded the church in the early 1990s, members met in her home. The church then moved to a location on St. Louis Avenue before moving to the building on McLaran about a decade ago.
"The key is that we stay together," Patterson added. "We need each other more than ever in these times."
Patterson said the church building had been used as a polling place years ago but was not scheduled to be a polling place for today's mayoral election.
Copyright 2013 - St. Louis Post-Dispatch
