First Baptist Dallas: “We Need to Level the Playing Field with our Facilities”
- Posted by: Todd
- Posted on: Thu, January 10, 2008
- Viewed 154
- (17) comments so far
Here’s the quote that got my eye though. Read the last two paragraphs of the article:
But on Sunday, he also challenged the church to consider building a new youth and children’s center. First Baptist can compete with suburban megachurches, he argued, but it has to be a fair fight.
“We need to level the playing field with our facilities,” he said.
(First Baptist Dallas just opened “The Criswell Center” in Downtown Dallas in 2006. That building cost $49 million (the church still owes $9 million on that one).
The article also mentions Fellowship Church (pastored by Ed Young, Jr.), that has spent $12 million to establish a satellite church in downtown Dallas. Wonder if there’s any correlation between Fellowship coming into downtown and First Baptist needing to ‘level the playing field’ to compete with suburban megachurches?
Any thoughts?
There's an interesting article that was run recently in the Dallas News about First Baptist Dallas, the downtown mega-church. Their new pastor, Robert Jeffress, is calling on the church to build a new worship center in Downtown Dallas. Jeffress says "the finest facility in the heart of downtown Dallas ought to be a worship center dedicated to almighty God." The average weekly attendance at the church is around 3,000...
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Dave on Mon, February 11, 2008
One of the obstacles to accomplishing the mission of the church in America is “edificialism”—a preoccupation with property and buildings as the measure of “success” and a measure of legitimacy.
Rather than viewing property and buildings as tools to accomplish the mission of the Church, they are viewed as status and success and something to be preserved.
The subtlety of edificialism has resulted in a misunderstanding of the Church as a destination. However, the Bible states very plainly that God does not dwell in a building made with human hands.
Church buildings are not the problem. The problem is a preoccupation with buildings. Christians begin to view the church building as their source of life, rather than Christ.
I like what Neil Cole suggests: “We need to resist the seductive magnet of glamorous buildings and religious hierarchical systems that bind us to a place and form of church that cannot spread His glory across the planet.”
Sid Gitzintroublefortellingtruth on Thu, April 23, 2009
Jeffress’ comments are brutally honest but you must understand his position. Jeffress was brought there for the exact purpose of fattening that congregation. There was no put-on sham about some lofty purpose or save-the-world mission; his assignment is to get members from out of their suburban churches and into a PROUD congregation which is now less than half of its former numbers. FBC told Jeffress to “make us BIIGGER”. I attended FBC Dallas for years. I have never known of a Christian church that is so concerned with institutional-preservation and so little concerned about increasing the Kingdom. Maybe FBC Dallas thinks they are the Kingdom!
One small example: FBC Dallas was NOT the first baptist church in Dallas, as the name implies. There were other Baptist churches, but since the other churches were not using the “FBC” name, FBC adopted it. Why? Because “FBC” doesn’t define chronology, it proclaims preeminence! We are First because we are best! Another Baptist church in the same county recently did the same thing—despite being the 50th Baptist church in the city, they chose the name “First Baptist”. I wearied of being in the midst of so many attenders who didn’t know the Lord from a lizard, but they were excited by the attractive entertainment and social events. Due to their extreme self-pride, the church has been repeatedly rocked by scandals and fights. I have good friends still at FBC who are hanging on despite FBC’s downturn from it’s former evangelical mission. I wish them all the best if they turn back to the Gospel.
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