EGN NEWS DESK
After the hearth that each one however destroyed the historic chapel at First Baptist Dallas on Friday, senior pastor Robert Jeffress promised congregants that the church will rebuild.
“It’s not the constructing, it is what that constructing represents: It represented the bedrock basis of God’s Word that by no means adjustments,” stated the megachurch’s chief since 2007 on the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center at First Baptist’s Sunday service.
Executive Pastor Ben Lovvorn stated Tuesday that church employees is working to protect the pink brick partitions of the Victorian chapel. The constructing could have to be demolished if structural engineers deem it unstable, the hearth division stated Saturday.
While the hearth didn’t injury the church’s main fashionable worship house, the six blocks of the campus remained blocked Sunday morning for first responders. Lovvorn stated that the church campus will stay closed all week however groups are at the moment “making nice, nice progress” to reopen the worship house for companies on Sunday. The reason behind the blaze has not but been decided.
The injury to the historic sanctuary is in depth with a collapsed roof. The church nonetheless awaits restore estimates and expects insurance coverage to cowl the expense. Jeffress pledged to “rebuild and re-create that sanctuary as a standing image of fact.”
The dedication to rebuilding isn’t any shock. The 134-year-old two-story chapel symbolizes the church’s relationship with the town and has change into a degree of delight for congregants and preservationists alike. Jeffress’ dedication echoes earlier leaders who’ve helped the church develop into one of many largest Southern Baptist church buildings within the nation, now boasting 16,000 members.
The church was based in 1868. Its 11 members initially worshipped in a close-by Mason Hall. According to the state historic marker on the website, an aggressive fundraising marketing campaign “financed by weaving rugs, making hominy, preserves, and cheese to promote at festivals” ultimately led them to construct a one-room body construction.
The present chapel opened in 1890 on the identical website. It was designed by Albert Ullrich, a Presbyterian architect who lived in Dallas earlier than transferring to New York. It was a notable presence within the rising downtown, together with the pink brick county courthouse, which opened in 1892. Eventually the chapel expanded to seat as much as 3,000 individuals.
Dallas, like many cities within the mid-Twentieth century, most popular tearing down older buildings to preserving them. But longtime pastors previous Jeffress, G.W. Truett and W.A. Criswell, who every served for 47 years, knew they may develop their downtown footprint whereas preserving the chapel. At the church’s seventy fifth anniversary celebration in 1943, a yr earlier than Truett died, a pamphlet declared its allegiance to downtown:
“There is a superb work for our church but to do. Every metropolis wants a powerful downtown church to maintain the group church-minded. With the longer term development of Dallas clearly assured, our church should meet the good problem and stick with it a big ministry to the individuals, within the title of the Lord Jesus Christ, our divine head.”
Criswell, one of many architects of the Conservative Resurgence inside the Southern Baptist Convention, oversaw the church’s large downtown growth, now spanning six blocks.
“We are downtown as a result of we select to be downtown,” stated Criswell, a two-time president of the SBC.
Under Criswell’s management, the church turned one of many largest landowners downtown. While increasing its attain, Criswell orchestrated an bold and controversial plan for the denomination as chief of the Conservative Resurgence. He additionally led an growth of ministries all through the area.
A second, glass sanctuary and corporate-style campus opened in 2013. Its $135 million fundraising drive below Jeffress was the biggest marketing campaign in Protestant historical past.
Jeffress is, like his predecessors, an bold, controversial pastor and political chief. He is a religious adviser to former President Donald Trump and seems often on conservative discuss exhibits. Throughout the years Presidents Woodrow Wilson, Gerald Ford, George H.W. Bush and Trump have visited the church. Gov. Greg Abbott spoke on the church in 2018 throughout a a hundred and fiftieth anniversary celebration.
When speaking concerning the chapel and the church’s determination to remain downtown, Jeffress instructed The Dallas Morning News in 2013 that staying downtown was a part of its identification and ministry. This dedication is why, not like different megachurches, it didn’t transfer to the suburbs.
“I consider the downtown space might be a supply of ministry,” Jeffress stated. “We need to appeal to the rising variety of individuals dwelling in each Uptown and downtown. But we are going to proceed to attract individuals from your complete area.”
At Sunday’s service, Jeffress stated architects instructed him any new fashionable facility “can be an architectural monstrosity.”
Mark Lamster, the News’ structure critic, agreed. He described the Beck Group’s growth in 2013 as “extra befitting of a industrial workplace constructing than a middle for divine transcendence.”
But on Sunday, Jeffress defended it. “It was a theological necessity as a result of we had been portray an image to individuals all through the group and world that, sure, strategies change for sharing the gospel, media adjustments, however the message by no means adjustments; the message stays the identical,” he stated. “And having that previous Victorian type constructing proper subsequent to a constructing full of glass and all the fashionable applied sciences is a reminder, was a relentless reminder, that the reality of God’s Word by no means, by no means adjustments.”
© Religion News Service
