After the hearth that every one but 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’s what that constructing represents: It represented the bedrock foundation of God’s Word that never changes,” said the megachurch’s leader since 2007 on the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center at First Baptist’s Sunday service.
Executive Pastor Ben Lovvorn said Tuesday that church staff is working to preserve the red brick partitions of the Victorian chapel. The constructing may should be demolished if structural engineers deem it unstable, the hearth department said Saturday.
While the hearth didn’t damage the church’s primary modern worship space, the six blocks of the campus remained blocked Sunday morning for first responders. Lovvorn said that the church campus will remain closed all week but teams are currently “making great, great progress” to reopen the worship space for services on Sunday. The reason behind the blaze has not yet been determined.
The damage to the historic sanctuary is extensive with a collapsed roof. The church still awaits repair estimates and expects insurance to cover the expense. Jeffress pledged to “rebuild and re-create that sanctuary as a standing symbol of truth.”
The commitment to rebuilding isn’t any surprise. The 134-year-old two-story chapel symbolizes the church’s relationship with the town and has turn into some extent of pride for congregants and preservationists alike. Jeffress’ commitment echoes previous leaders who’ve helped the church grow into one in all the biggest Southern Baptist churches within the country, now boasting 16,000 members.
The church was founded in 1868. Its 11 members initially worshipped in a close-by Mason Hall. According to the state historic marker at the positioning, an aggressive fundraising campaign “financed by weaving rugs, making hominy, preserves, and cheese to sell at fairs” eventually led them to construct a one-room frame structure.
The current chapel opened in 1890 on the identical site. It was designed by Albert Ullrich, a Presbyterian architect who lived in Dallas before moving to New York. It was a notable presence within the growing downtown, together with the red brick county courthouse, which opened in 1892. Eventually the chapel expanded to seat as much as 3,000 people.
Dallas, like many cities within the mid-Twentieth century, preferred tearing down older buildings to preserving them. But longtime pastors preceding Jeffress, G.W. Truett and W.A. Criswell, who each served for 47 years, knew they may expand their downtown footprint while preserving the chapel. At the church’s seventy fifth anniversary celebration in 1943, a yr before Truett died, a pamphlet declared its allegiance to downtown:
“There is an awesome work for our church yet to do. Every city needs a powerful downtown church to maintain the community church-minded. With the longer term growth of Dallas clearly assured, our church must meet the nice challenge and carry on a big ministry to the people, within the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, our divine head.”
Criswell, one in all the architects of the Conservative Resurgence throughout the Southern Baptist Convention, oversaw the church’s massive downtown expansion, now spanning six blocks.
“We are downtown because we elect to be downtown,” said Criswell, a two-time president of the SBC.
Under Criswell’s leadership, the church became one in all the biggest landowners downtown. While expanding its reach, Criswell orchestrated an ambitious and controversial plan for the denomination as leader of the Conservative Resurgence. He also led an expansion of ministries throughout the region.
A second, glass sanctuary and corporate-style campus opened in 2013. Its $135 million fundraising drive under Jeffress was the biggest campaign in Protestant history.
Jeffress is, like his predecessors, an ambitious, controversial pastor and political leader. He is a spiritual adviser to former President Donald Trump and appears frequently on conservative talk shows. 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 during a a hundred and fiftieth anniversary celebration.
When talking concerning the chapel and the church’s decision to remain downtown, Jeffress told The Dallas Morning News in 2013 that staying downtown was a part of its identity and ministry. This commitment is why, unlike other megachurches, it didn’t move to the suburbs.
“I feel the downtown area will likely be a source of ministry,” Jeffress said. “We wish to attract the growing number of individuals living in each Uptown and downtown. But we are going to proceed to attract people from the whole region.”
At Sunday’s service, Jeffress said architects told him any recent modern facility “could be an architectural monstrosity.”
Mark Lamster, the News’ architecture critic, agreed. He described the Beck Group’s expansion in 2013 as “more befitting of a industrial office constructing than a middle for divine transcendence.”
But on Sunday, Jeffress defended it. “It was a theological necessity because we were painting an image to people throughout the community and world that, yes, methods change for sharing the gospel, media changes, however the message never changes; the message stays the identical,” he said. “And having that old Victorian style constructing right next to a constructing stuffed with glass and all the trendy technologies is a reminder, was a relentless reminder, that the reality of God’s Word never, never changes.”
© Religion News Service
