GREEN RIDGE BAPTIST CHURCH IN EXPANSION

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, January 14, 1993                   TAG: 9301140346
SECTION: NEIGHBORS                    PAGE: N-8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: FRANCES STEBBINS CORRESPONDENT
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short
GREEN RIDGE BAPTIST CHURCH IN EXPANSION
Green Ridge Baptist Church, a Southern Baptist congregation in North Roanoke County, has begun a $1 million expansion. Completion of the new worship center and fellowship hall is expected about Labor Day, the Rev. J. Michael Palmer said.
Palmer said the new church, designed for easy visibility and involvement of the congregation, will seat about 600, more than double the current seating space. The 27-year-old suburban church now has two Sunday morning services. Palmer, the church's pastor, estimates Sunday attendance at 300, with 280 in the education program.
The worship center will occupy the main floor, with a large fellowship hall on a ground level. Several new classrooms also will be on the lower level, the pastor said.
Financing has been partially raised by a "Together We Build" campaign in which $120,000 was raised in 1992. The pastor said this is in addition to the operating budget's being 98 percent pledged.
Construction price for the building is $862,000. Palmer said the congregation plans to finish the fellowship hall as money permits. That is expected to cost about $100,000.
The loss of Dominion Bank jobs for several church members will have some effect on the time the full project will be complete, the pastor added.
The building project is the third the church has undertaken since it was organized in 1966. The worship center at Cove and Green Ridge roads was built in 1967, and an education wing added five years later.

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB