On June 4, Pentecost Sunday, in a gesture meant to symbolize their joining with the Holy Spirit in building a “spiritual house with living stones,” members of Earle Street Baptist Church wrote their names on small stones — hundreds of them — that will literally become part of the foundation for a new addition at the 95-year-old Greenville church.

Breaking ground for a classroom building expansion.

“We are living stones,” pastor Stephen Clyborne said during the worship service that preceded a groundbreaking ceremony, referencing 1 Peter 2:4-5: “Coming to Him as to a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God and precious, you also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house.”

“When you put your name on this stone, it represents the life you live and the gifts you give,” Clyborne said. “But when our stones are buried, the Spirit will give them life in ways we never dreamed possible.”

After the sermon, worshippers moved to the parking lot, near the spot where a 15,000-square-foot extension to the church’s education wing will be built over the next 12 months. One by one, young and old, church members placed their stones beside a larger stone bearing the inscription, “Jesus, Chief Cornerstone, Ephesians 2:20.”

The three-story, $4.5 million expansion will provide additional classroom, restroom and office space and will improve accessibility for people with physical disabilities. The building will match the church’s architecture and will include a drive-through drop-off area.