First Baptist Dallas opens $130 million church in Texas
First Baptist Church of Dallas has completed the construction of the new $130 million new campus, which is designed to offer a unique worship experience.
Accommodating the largest Protestant church building in Dallas, the new campus of the First Baptist Church of Dallas is spread over more than one million square feet, and features various newest technological advances in its design. It opened on 31 March on Easter Sunday.
Located next to the historic landmark, a 122-year-old sanctuary, the church is a 3,000-seat worship centre. The church features a 150 feet-wide IMAX-quality video wall stretching more than two-thirds the width of the auditorium.
The auditorium features seven high-definition projectors blended together, which makes it one of the largest viewing screens in any church in the world. The wood bands along the walls, surrounding the Worship Center, contain LED strips that can be programmed to millions of different colours.
The new campus also accommodates another five-storied building called Horner Family Center, which is connected to the Worship Center via a glass sky bridge. The Horner Family Center features themed children's and youth classrooms, a gymnasium, and three age-appropriate indoor playgrounds. Apart from that the campus also includes a seven-storied parking garage.
The campus also features a high-impact cross-tower and fountain, which are surrounded by 0.33 acres of public community space. The fountain serves as the grand entrance to the new campus, featuring a stainless steel cross atop a pedestal rising 68 feet high.
The tower is surrounded by a shallow water pool, containing a heated baptistery as well as eight water cannons and 21 undulating titan water jets. Along the edge of the fountain's pool, the visitors can see a Scripture text from John 4:14, stating, "Whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life." Several custom orchestral scores of anthems and spiritual songs accompany the programmed flow of the cascading water.
The new First Baptist campus is part of an extensive ongoing revitalisation of downtown Dallas. The church officially broke ground on the new construction on 11 July 2011.
