Two Alabama Baptist churches with a desire to meet the growing needs of their congregations and neighborhoods have chosen some atypical yet effective building strategies.
They decided to go with temporary, portable facilities early in their ministries.
SonRise Baptist Church, Tuscaloosa, a nine-year-old church led by Pastor Roy Hill, is currently meeting in a huge 106- by 76- foot tent. Members have been worshiping in the tent for nearly 18 months.
In SonRise’s beginning, six families living in Woodstock knew God was speaking to them about beginning a contemporary ministry in their area. The families knew Hill and invited him to speak at a local restaurant where they were meeting. He soon became the church’s pastor.
The congregation outgrew the restaurant and rented a nearby school where it met for two and a half years. “After an amazing growth period, we realized meeting in the school was hurting us. We had Sunday School classes meeting in the hallways with people sitting on the floor. We needed something affordable and immediate.”
Hill described SonRise as a seven-day-a-week “ministry-oriented” church, but the old facilities were limiting the church’s ministry capabilities.
After focused prayer, SonRise decided to purchase 51 acres of land in McCalla located in Tuscaloosa County. After purchasing the land, the church’s funds were not adequate to build an appropriate facility.
According to Gary Swafford, associate director of the State Board of Missions new work and church building services department, “Their numerical growth was much bigger than their financial capabilities to supply a building the church needed. If SonRise had built a small, high-quality, everything first-class building, the decision would have killed their vision because it would have limited it,” he said to a group of church leaders who attended a church planning and building conference held recently in Montgomery and Decatur. “The church would have outgrown this smaller facility, especially in the growth it has had between then and 2000,” he said.
Looks like a circus tent
The decision was made to pour a large cement slab in the front of the church property. Hill said the church purchased what looks like a circus tent and set it up over the cement slab and installed all the basic needs — bathrooms, air conditioning, heating, sound system and chairs.
Hill said the church is currently averaging 150 in attendance, with a total of five portable buildings on its land used for office space and 13 Sunday School classes. A three-phase project was started not long ago, and the church is currently building a metal multilevel facility that will accommodate 600 people. The second phase will be to build a contemporary worship center and conference facility.
“The building is functional, and it fits into a master-site plan,” Swafford said.
Huntsville’s Willowbrook Baptist Church was seeing amazing growth and chose to start a satellite church, Willowbrook West, in a rapidly growing area in nearby Madison where 18 acres were purchased. Like SonRise, Willowbrook West opted against building a permanent facility. Instead, it purchased a sprung structure, which Pastor Steve Lacy described as “an aluminum infrastructure that resembles a tent. The structures are designed to last anywhere from 10–20 years. Lacy said when more room is needed, “you just take the ends off, add onto it, then replace the ends.”
Willowbrook West’s sprung structure seats 400. Because of continued growth, the church is conducting two Sunday morning services. Swafford added, “It’s about being focused on your vision and taking small, prayerful, tangible steps in order not to limit your vision.”
“SonRise and Willowbrook West were adaptable to their growth and did what they could financially, step by step, to accommodate their people to accomplish their purpose. They are doing what they can with the resources they have and doing some very wise planning,” Swafford said.
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