
DATE: Friday, November 28, 1997             TAG: 9711280094

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY ERIKA REIF, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: HAMPTON                           LENGTH:  210 lines

A "GOD-SIZED" UNDERTAKING HAMPTON'S LIBERTY BAPTIST HEEDS THE CALL TO BUILD A $27 MILLION MEGA-CHURCH COMPLEX.

George Lankford follows the tractor tread grooves of the Liberty Baptist Church of the future.

Right now, it looks like the beginning of a sports complex.

At the back of the 46-plus acre lot on Big Bethel Road, lights reach skyward above two softball fields. A two-story gazebo holds restrooms and a concession stand. Five picnic shelters offer views of a handful of sand volleyball courts and horseshoe pits.

At Lankford's feet is the base of a gymnasium. By August it could be reverberating with the sounds of feet pounding on two basketball courts and an elevated jogging track. To one side, concrete foundation has been poured for an education building that will flank a theater-style sanctuary seating 3,500.

Wearing a white hard hat, Lankford, 74, scans the construction site of what is envisioned as Hampton Roads' biggest and boldest worship center. Church administrators unabashedly describe their $27 million project as ``God-sized.'' The congregation calls it their ``Canaan.''

Said Lankford: ``When the Lord leads a group to say `Go,' we get up and move.''

Fully half of the worship center's acreage has been designated for recreation fields and a 250-seat outdoor amphitheater, as a way to draw in young people and families, said Ed Parker, church member and relocation manager.

The athletic areas were set up before a single brick of the church was placed, to attract attention and ``to get the people out here,'' Parker said.

Plans are drawn for 300,000 square feet of buildings anchored around a worship center, and a connected Family Life Center with a gym. The design calls for a soccer field, four tennis courts, four racquetball courts, and aerobics, weight training and locker rooms ``comparable to anything that you would see at a local YMCA,'' Parker said. There will be 1,000 parking spaces.

Parker described it as a ``full-service church . . . built to meet the physical and spiritual needs of the congregation.''

That's not all. Toss in plans for a food court, dining room, bookstore, library, and game room with billiards and table tennis and it approaches ``all-encompassing,'' Parker said. With each activity done under Christian supervision, ``that's another area of your life that you've committed to the Lord,'' he said.

The congregation has no idea when the entire package will be finished, but they harbor no doubts that they will do it, someday.

Until money is raised to build the sanctuary, the gym with stacking chairs will serve as both worship and recreation center, Parker said. It is scheduled to be finished this summer.

The master plan was drawn by Shriver and Holland Associates of Norfolk, which designed Norfolk International Airport and its current expansion, and were associate architects for Nauticus.

For the fan-shaped sanctuary, traditional stained-glass windows were passed over in favor of controlled lighting, ``so you can have theatrics in the daytime,'' said Parker, an architect now studying for the ministry.

Worshipers can expect to receive the spiritual message through sound systems ``as good as you can possibly afford,'' and rear video projectors with multiple screens showing hymn lyrics, news and upcoming events. All are aimed at bringing ``presentation'' into the 21st century, he said.

``The message is eternal, but how to receive that message has to be current,'' Parker explained.

Education and administration buildings will surround the sanctuary, and a second-story circular lobby - much like the wide corridors of a shopping mall - will provide ``a sense of community,'' Parker said.

People are already active in the church's many ministries.

On a recent Wednesday night in the old gym, Anthony Shinault crouched against a wall watching a half-court basketball game. The 10th-grader at Bethel High School in Hampton is one of about 450 youths who participate in a church basketball league.

The layups and jump shots during tryouts several weeks ago were designed to help coaches create equal teams without leaving anyone out. Shinault is looking forward to the bigger gym, where more games can be played at one time.

And, Shinault said, ``It might draw people that aren't Christian and they just come to play basketball - because it's happened before. And then they start coming and becoming members.''

Liberty's education minister, Terry Smith, 46, uses sports to teach young people about character. Smith played defensive back for the University of Northern Colorado in the early 1970s and was a former college and high school football coach.

Like music and other outreach programs, recreation brings people in from all over the region.

``There's a lot of people that would never feel comfortable walking through the doors of a church on Sunday morning in a suit and tie that would be very comfortable walking through the doors of a Family Life Center in shorts and tennis shoes,'' Smith said.

Liberty members are readying themselves to leave behind the austere white walls, simple stained glass window squares and wooden pews of the old sanctuary.

But the tenets of their faith, which follow a strict, literal interpretation of the Bible, remain. ``With a mega-church concept we're entering into, that which is a part of their lives Monday through Friday now can be a part of their church,'' Smith said.

More than 1,500 people crowd three Sunday services and Bible classes. The lack of parking and worship space were the driving forces behind the new facility.

On the Peninsula, Liberty is second in congregation size only to Bethel Temple Assembly of God on Todd's Lane. Liberty has 3,000 people on its membership rolls.

It is the second-largest Southern Baptist congregation in the region after First Baptist Church of Norfolk, which had space problems that prompted its congregation to buy a 48-acre site in Greenbrier in 1993.

Plans at First Baptist match those at Liberty in terms of sanctuary and recreation space. But design and construction at First Baptist will be postponed until the church pays off debts for a 1990 expansion of the original Kempsville Road church, said architect Ken Blankenship, director of the Norfolk project.

First Baptist is considering building membership at a location near the Greenbrier site in part to boost financial support, he said.

To find models for these mega-churches, officials from both churches traveled to Memphis, Tenn.; Atlanta; Orlando, Fla.; Albuquerque, N.M.; and other cities where multipurpose churches have taken hold.

Common to most mega-churches are high-tech worship areas and enough space for smaller groups to join in rallies, conferences, mission training, sports and picnics.

These projects can only be bankrolled by the largest churches in the Southern Baptist denomination. At Liberty, next year's operating budget is about $2 million, which has more than doubled along with attendance since the late 1980s, said church administrator Bobby Turner.

In addition, $2.4 million has been raised for relocation, and $3.3 million more is needed to cover current construction costs. Church officials plan to sell the old church building to another congregation to help fund future work.

``This is as big as anything I've done in the business world,'' said Turner, who was vice president and controller with Crestar bank in Newport News in the 1980s. ``Most of your small businesses in the Tidewater area don't take in $3 million a year.

``There's nothing like God's business. It's a feeling - just to know what you're doing is expanding the kingdom of God.''

Some of the project's most fervent supporters were not always in favor of moving. Lankford, who now heads the building committee, originally spoke against it. He was loyal to the old Liberty Baptist Church building where he has worshiped since 1946, less than a block away from where he now inspects the construction site.

But opinions unified in 1985 after Lankford and 20 other church representatives secluded themselves at an old plantation in Surry County to talk and pray. The group came away in agreement: Spreading the Word required space to accommodate new followers.

On Sunday, Liberty's congregation made individual pledges for the year totaling $700,000. Personal pledges are how the church generates all its income. Most members live on shipyard, military or NASA-Langley paychecks, said Bob Fox, former church treasurer.

Fox, who's on the budget committee, pushes hard for the money.

``This will be people sacrificing, giving up meals and going on vacations, driving their car another two, three years. . . . It's not out of their excess,'' Fox said.

He recently stood before a packed congregation and testified sternly about tithing - giving 10 percent of one's earnings to the church.

``How much are you willing to sacrifice for your faith?'' Fox asked. ``Seven out of ten persons in our church are robbing God. Are you one of them?''

Fox, 75, was at the retreat with Lankford, where members decided that the project would go forward. He, too, had been against leaving the old, comfortable church where ``you just feel like there, God is in your midst.'' It also seemed impossible that enough money could be amassed to buy the property.

But on the second night of the three-day retreat, they had a revelation about a method for raising the money. Fox was jolted back to his years as a pilot at Ellsworth Air Force Base, when he volunteered to raise money for a Boy Scout camp.

At the retreat, ``The Lord woke me up in my sleep and said, `Fool, don't you remember how they raised money to buy land for the Boy Scouts in South Dakota, a dollar per square foot?' '' Fox said.

His revelation spurred a program where congregants contributed weekly in amounts ranging from less than a dollar into the thousands, depending on the number of square feet they ``purchased.'' On pledge forms titled ``My Canaan Claim,'' the congregation eventually raised $1.35 million until the property was paid off in 1990.

The fund raising has now shifted to the purchase of the building - and nearly all ages are involved. On a recent activity night, Allison Barbour, 16, explained that she will donate $2 a week toward the new facility.

Although the Tabb High School student earns a little through babysitting, she said, ``I'm counting on God to provide that money for me - because I don't have it.''

Barbour says she realizes that much of the complex is geared toward attracting younger worshipers. And that there is responsibility in using it for its purpose - helping develop a long-term relationship with God, not just finding a place to ``come and hang out.''

``The older people probably aren't going to be able to see it finished and they're tithing and stuff for us,'' she said. ``That's really awesome.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo

IAN MARTIN photos/The Virginian-Pilot

Liberty Baptist's current steeple is visible from the site of its

300,000-square-foot project, under construction on Big Bethel Road

in Hampton.

Drawing

A lack of parking and worship space for the people who attend

Liberty Baptist each Sunday was the driving force behind the new

project.

Graphic

21st CENTURY CHURCH

The philosophy: The high-tech church is designed to draw in young

people and their families - a ``full-service church . . . built to