Dedication of the Birmingham Alabama Temple
In the year leading up to the dedication of a house of the Lord in Alabama, the president of the Birmingham Alabama Stake did more first-time interviews for temple recommends than in the previous five years total. “Our members have been so excited,” President Richard D. May said on a hot, humid September day in the Southern United States.
“They’ve been working more diligently on their family history,” he related after the first of four dedicatory sessions on Sept. 3, 2000. “During our open house, I saw a lot of less-active members come out. They said, ‘We’re ready to get back to living the gospel.’”
Living the gospel seemed a way of life for the more than 4,800 members who attended the dedication of the Birmingham Alabama Temple, which at the time served seven stakes in Alabama and Florida. One member at the services had 96 names ready for ordinance work. Another member, 8-year-old Jared, expressed his joy by “cooing.” The boy, nonverbal because of a disability, smiled at the touch and sound of his father, Rick Merrill of the Athens Ward, Huntsville Alabama Stake.
“He feels the Spirit,” Brother Merrill said outside the temple, speaking of his son. “When we came to the open house, he was not silent. He ... expresses [the Spirit] with his cooing.”
Then-temple matron Sandra L. Rich — who was serving with her husband, E. Allen Rich, the first president of the Birmingham Alabama Temple — wondered aloud with emotion what different roads their lives might have taken had they not let in the missionaries 40 years prior.
During one of their missionary discussions, the elders had spoken of the temple in Salt Lake City, where families can be sealed for time and all eternity. Sister Rich said she asked, “Can we go there?”
Members of all ages were impacted by the dedication of the Birmingham Alabama Temple. There were the 10- and 11-year-old siblings who made small personal donations to the building of the temple. The nonagenarian Elder David B. Haight of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles celebrated both his 94th birthday in Birmingham the day before the temple dedication as well as his 70th wedding anniversary with his wife, Sister Ruby Haight, who was also present, the day after the dedication.
Elder Haight accompanied Church President Gordon B. Hinckley to Alabama for the dedicatory services. President Hinckley offered the dedicatory prayer during four sessions on this sunlit Sunday. For 12-year-old Rebecca Laxson of the Gardendale Branch, whose long red hair stood out against her white dress, the event left a deep impression. “This is the house of the Lord, and we should respect it and be really reverent in it.”
Dedicatory prayer excerpt: “Father, this house has been constructed largely with the tithes of Thy people throughout the world. Please keep Thine ancient promises; open the windows of heaven and shower down blessings upon them. Prosper them in righteousness in their labors. May the generations who come after them be blessed because of the faithfulness of their forebears who live today.”
Read the dedicatory prayer of the Birmingham Alabama Temple here.
Timeline of the Birmingham Alabama Temple
The Birmingham Alabama Temple was announced in September 1998 by the First Presidency, and a groundbreaking ceremony was held Oct. 9, 1999. President Gordon B. Hinckley dedicated the sacred edifice on Sept. 3, 2000, in four sessions, with approximately 4,800 attending.
This house of the Lord in the suburb of Gardendale, outside Birmingham, was among a flurry of temples leading to the dedication of the Church’s 100th temple. The Birmingham temple was the third dedicated in the South in five weeks, alongside such edifices in Oklahoma and Houston, Texas.
Architecture and Design of the Birmingham Alabama Temple
The first house of the Lord in Alabama stands in a suburb aptly called Gardendale — a green, lush neighborhood a short drive from downtown Birmingham. The Birmingham Alabama Temple rests just off Mount Olive Boulevard on 5.6 acres, adjacent a meetinghouse.
The sacred edifice is one story tall, one of the smaller temples dedicated during President Gordon B. Hinckley’s time as Church President, and is classic modern with Imperial Danby white marble on its exterior. A statue of the angel Moroni stands atop a three-level spire. The area of the building is approximately 10,700 square feet, and after being dedicated, the temple originally served seven stakes in Alabama and Florida.