After nearly two years of work, Northgate Christian Fellowship will be ready to unveil its redesigned campus with new facilities Sunday in a series of services.

The centerpiece of this renovation is a new 23,000 square foot building with a 5,700 square foot auditorium that can seat up to 500 people, a cafe area that seats up to 45 and a children’s play area for newborns to 3-year-olds. Senior Pastor Ken Jensen said the facilities were put in place to accommodate the tremendous amount of growth the nondenominational church has experienced in recent years.

“As our church has grown, we outgrew our current facilities and we also want to continue to make space for people who aren’t already here,” he said.

According to Jensen, Northgate began operating nearly 25 years ago when it rented space out of the old post office on West Second Street. After outgrowing that space, the church operated out of a warehouse off Interstate 680 near the National Defense Reserve Fleet. In 2005, the church moved into its current location on 2201 Lake Herman Road.

Jensen said the goal of Northgate was to be a community-based church for “unchurched people.”

“Our whole ministry has been geared to be user friendly toward those who have no church background or have drifted from church or maybe had a bad experience at a church,” he said. “We’ve tried to remove any of the barriers- real or perceived- that people might have about church.”

This approach has resonated with many people in the area to the point where it has received memberships from people outside Benicia.

“Our church has been drawing attenders from Vallejo, Cordelia, Suisun, and even Martinez, Antioch and Brentwood,” he said. “It’s become more of a regional church, even though our campus is in Benicia.”

Thus, the need for additional facilities was apparent. The church started its redesign process two years ago with a fundraising campaign. Northgate received design approval from the Historic Preservation Review Commission in 2014 and recruited the same architects who designed the original building. Groundbreaking began in June 2015.

Jensen said the biggest obstacle in the process was the heavy rains Benicia received over the winter.

“We had quite a stretch where we couldn’t do any of the finished grading because it was just so wet and muddy, but we were able to finish that off,” he said.

Jensen said that one of the goals of the new building is to make it more of a community center that would draw in events beyond just weekend services.

“It has a pretty much state-of-the-art lighting, sound and video capability,” he said. “We want to make it available in the community.”

Additionally, Northgate will continue to offer its free community events like Family Spring Fest and Trunk or Treat. It will also continue to offer the Digging Into God (DIG) program, a play area with a mining theme designed to help kids become familiar with the Bible’s themes and stories through hands-on learning.

“Information without application doesn’t really do much good for people, so we really strive for life application teaching from Scripture,” Jensen said.

Northgate will be holding the grand opening of its new building Sunday with three church services at 9 a.m., 10:30 a.m. and noon. Jensen said the services would mirror what churchgoers would expect every Sunday but with a few surprises thrown in. Northgate Christian Fellowship is located at 2201 Lake Herman Road. For more information, call the church at 747-5855.