First Baptist Church in downtown Jacksonville. [Florida Times-Union file] - ▲ First Baptist Church in downtown Jacksonville. [Don Burk/Florida Times-Union file] ▲

A pillar of faith in downtown Jacksonville for 181 years, First Baptist Church plans to consolidate its sprawling 10-block campus into one block in an effort to eliminate skyrocketing maintenance costs, while also rebuilding its dwindling congregation by extending its ministry to growing areas of Duval County.



The congregation Sunday morning overwhelmingly approved the plan that calls for borrowing $30 million to pay for the estimated 18- to 24-month project centered on the church's historic Hobson Auditorium, 124 W. Ashley St.



Senior Pastor Heath Lambert detailed the proposal during his sermon at the morning service attended by an estimated 3,000 people in the main auditorium of the church at 119 W. Beaver St.







"This great and wonderful church is in a desperate season," Lambert said. "Right now, today, we are losing money on property that we can't afford."



Lambert said Hobson Auditorium will be restored to once again serve as the church's main worship center. The adjacent Administration and Lindsay buildings will be renovated into state-of-the-art educational, gathering and administrative spaces, he said.



"The Hobson Auditorium is the birthplace of the miracle of downtown Jacksonville," Lambert said referring to First Baptist Church.



Restoring it means going back to the church's roots, he said.



Ultimately, the nine neighboring blocks comprising the church's campus will be sold, and the money used to pay off the loan financing the consolidation project.



However, the asking price for the property and timeline for the sale hasn't been determined, Lambert told the congregation.



At the end of his sermon — based on the Book of Nehemiah, which is about the need to rebuild Jerusalem and move forward for the future of the faith — the congregation voted on the plan.



All except about a half-dozen people in the auditorium literally stood up in support of the proposal, which earlier was endorsed by the church trustees and deacons.



"I think it's the right thing to do. It makes sense to do this," said Melanie Dietermann, who began attending the church about two years ago.



"We can't keep spending so much money on upkeep that we can't afford mission trips to bring Jesus to people," said Dietermann, noting that the church was forced to cancel its mission trip's this year because of the burgeoning financial woes.



Lambert said maintenance costs are eating away at the church budget at an alarming rate. Meanwhile, church membership has steadily declined over 20 years. Unless action is taken, the church won't survive, he told the congregation.



The situation is so grave it is one of only three such desperate moments in First Baptist Church's 181-year history, he said.



The first was 1901, when the Great Fire of Jacksonville leveled downtown, including the church. The second was 1941, when the church was in overwhelming debt so that it was the "most broke church in the Southern Baptist Convention" and our future was at risk, Lambert said.



"Today, 2019, is one of those similarly desperate moments. It is a time when our future is at stake, when our ability to do the work that God has given us to do is in jeopardy. It's a desperate time in the life of our congregation," Lambert said.



First Baptist is too big for its needs.



Lambert said the church only needs 182,000-square feet of space for its Sunday morning activities. Only the Hobson Auditorium block meets that requirement.



Currently, the church has roughly 1.5 million-square feet or 10 times the space it needs to affordably do its ministry, he said.



"In order to justify that kind of square footage, it requires 23,000 people at church on Sunday morning, which our church has never had," Lambert said.



It's aging buildings and infrastructure are continually in disrepair, such as broken elevators, failing air conditioners and weather-beaten, bad-smelling structures, Lambert said.



Maintenance, especially deferred maintenance, costs the church millions of dollars annually.



"In our budget, every year we spend $5 million taking care of our property. That is 37 percent of our budget ...and that is not enough money to take care of what we've got," Lambert said.



Lambert said it would cost $37 million to fix everything on the current deferred maintenance list. They would need to spend $7 million every year to take care of the buildings they have now.



Complicating the matter, First Baptist Church is a downtown church that is isolated.



More and more people are unwilling to come downtown for services. The church must go to them in the growing areas of the county, he said.



Still deemed a mega church, First Baptist nonetheless has been losing membership at an alarming pace over the years.



"For 20 years, our church has existed in an overall pattern of decline. For the last 10 years, we have been in an acute pattern of decline," he said.



He said it's been a straight decline for 11 years. In 2010, the church lost 8 percent of its downtown Sunday morning attendance. In 2011, it lost 3 percent, 2012 it lost 2 percent and 2013 was the church's "best year" because it only lost 0.08 percent.



But in 2014, the church lost more than 7 percent, It lost 3 percent in 2015, while in 2016 it lost 1 percent. In 2017, the downtown church lost 6 percent and in 2018, it lost 2 percent, Lambert said.



Lambert said so far this year, Sunday morning church attendance is up slightly more than 3 percent.



"Instead of asking the city to come to our church, we're going to take our church out to the city. We can stay committed to downtown and spread out to other regions," Lambert said.



The church's Nocatee campus is an example of how that can be done, he said.



Renovating the Hobson Auditorium and related buildings is the way to keep the church downtown while also reaching out to the rest of the county.



Lambert said the Hobson block will become a place attracting people to worship when the project is done.



Everything they want to do at the Hobson block can be done for $30 million, and borrowing the money is the most practical means to get that money, he said.



Lambert said once the project is done, the church will save about $4 million a year on the plan.



John Sullivan, the church's pastor of education for senior adults, told the congregation First Baptist "must continue to be the gospel preaching center of downtown Jacksonville."



Sullivan said the plan will preserve the church and move it forward in its ministry.



One thing that won't change, Lambert assured the congregation, "is our church's commitment to the perfect, unfailing word of God."



Teresa Stepzinski: (904) 359-4075

