Breaking tradition

When the new Crossroads Fellowship building in Jackson is finished, it will be immediately recognizable. But it won't look like a church.

And that's the way the congregation wants it.

Ken Lucy, co-chairman if Crossroad's building team, says every square inch of the 22,000-square-foot steel building "is going to be multipurpose in intent."

Lucy calls the building "simple and elegant." It won't look like a traditional church, but it will be a distinctive building that will draw people to it. There will be no steeple, no bell tower.

Even the crosses will be subtle -- one cross on the church's logo, and the window panes will be separated into four sections subtly by a cross.

"You're not going to get hit over the head with symbols coming in," Lucy said, "We may not walk around with crucifixes around our necks, but we have the love of Christ within our hearts and the Holy Spirit within us. We don't hit people with a Bible and say 'turn or burn.' It's just not how it works."

The facility will be the congregation's offering to Jackson and the surrounding area.

"We plan to share this building with the community," Lucy said.

Currently, the foundation and footings are being poured. Sometime before the end of September, Lucy said, the metal building will arrive on a truck from Mississippi to be erected at the site.

The area where services will be held will also function as a gymnasium with a regulation baseball floor and an area marked for volleyball. During services people will sit in chairs facing the stage where the church leaders will be. Rolling basketball goals will be brought in when groups come in to set up a game, Lucy said.

A suite of offices will occupy one side of the building. On the opposite wing will be a multipurpose room that can be divided into smaller rooms for smaller uses. The building will house rooms for a children's ministry and a dedicated, secure preschool facility. There will also be a caterer's kitchen, and men and women's showers and bathrooms.

Plans also include outdoor fields for softball, soccer and a sand volleyball pit. The church will be part of the community in a major way, Lucy said.

Crossroads is making its place in the Jackson community with this building, making it available for everything from dodge ball tournaments to wedding receptions.

"If the Optimists need a place to play youth basketball, there will be a place for it," Lucy said. "If an employee group or some other civic organization needs to host a special event, the building would be available for them to use it. We expect to be a place people think of when they're looking for a place to get married and do not have a church home or they're from two different congregations and need a middle side. Our building will be open to the community."

Worshipping in auditorium

Ever since Crossroads Fellowship split amicably from First Baptist Church in Jackson in 2003, the congregation has worshipped at the Jackson High School auditorium. Vacation Bible school was held in the Jackson armory. Other ministries are ongoing in other locations around town.

When the new structure is built, it will not only be a landmark with a 44-foot peak on its roof, it will be a place where the community can gather and the congregation can, in its own way, reach out to those who come there. Lucy said that for the people of Crossroads, being a contemporary church is more than singing contemporary hymns during worship.

"It's an approach actually that's reaching the community with the good news of Jesus Christ," he said.

The approach may be different, Lucy said, but it works.

"We're the only Baptist church that has a dance group in it," he said. "We have had people saved including a senior adult lady who came to church because she wanted to learn how to line dance. We taught her about country line dance and taught her about the love of Christ. That's what it's all about."

In the last three years, the congregation has amassed about 350 members and continues to grow.

"It's the Holy Spirit," Lucy said. "It certainly is not any smart thing we have done."

In that time, the congregation has also raised $650,000 in donations and pledges toward the $2.5 million project. But the members don't think raising the balance will be much of a problem. They don't have a lot of work to do to raise the rest.

"The Lord does," Lucy said. "It's up to him. He said build it and we did. It's up to him to say how it will be paid for."

lredeffer@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 160