[1]DALLAS (BP)–A proposed $48 million eight-story building that would provide Christian lifestyle ministries ranging from a coffee house to a brightly lighted prayer tower was met with approval from several thousand members of the First Baptist Church, Dallas.
Church leaders unveiled plans for the new eight-story building on May 5 at a special service held at the Dallas Convention Center. The congregation of one of the nation’s most prominent Baptist churches responded positively to the planned facility, according to the Dallas Morning News.
Plans for the downtown building include a Christian bookstore, coffee house, sports-themed snack bar, a banquet hall for dinner theatres, classrooms, office space and a prayer tower that would rise more than eight stories above the street.
The new building will also serve thousands of residents who live in or near downtown Dallas or who work near the church’s downtown campus.
Mac Brunson, pastor of First Baptist Dallas, told the Dallas Morning News the church was committed to ministering in downtown.
“I get no sense of the leading of the Lord to move this church,” Brunson told the paper. “We’re in downtown Dallas for a reason.”
[2]The building would be built on the site of a current parking lot and a building named after the late W.A. Criswell, who died in January.
Brunson told church members that once the money is raised for the building, construction would take about two years.
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(BP) graphic posted in the BP Photo Library at http://www.bpnews.net. Photo title: PROPOSED BUILDING.