Spiritual corridor keeps growing

Van Dyke United Methodist Church is the latest to expand with a new worship center that will include a 1,100-seat sanctuary, a 100-seat chapel and landscaping improvements.

[Times photo: Fraser Hale] The Van Dyke United Methodist Church is building a new sanctuary next to its current buildings. Nearby churches St. Timothy Catholic, Idlewild and Journey Christian are also working on expansions.

By LOGAN D. MABE, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published November 1, 2002

ODESSA -- Spiritual life along the Van Dyke Road corridor is booming with churches upgrading or building entirely new religious compounds.

St. Timothy Catholic Church has its $10-million complex at Van Dyke and Lakeshore ready for opening in December. Further east, Idlewild is fast moving forward on its $60-million, 144-acre baptist minicity. Even newcomer Journey Christian Church has tagged land on Van Dyke near Gunn Highway for a future home.

Now, Van Dyke United Methodist Church on Lakeshore Road is adding a new sanctuary to accommodate its growing congregation.

"We're constructing a new worship center and sanctuary," said Lew Conwell, who chairs the church's building committee. "Then there's the related site improvements. Since you're having a new building, you have to have more retention ponds. It will make it prettier and will hold more water."

"We'll have a major facelift," project co-manager Bob King said. "Nearly 40,000 square feet for a 1,100-seat sanctuary, plus a 100-seat chapel, choir rehearsal and music facility."

King said the church was able to raise about $5-million in pledges from the congregation to finance the new building. "It came from generous gifts," King said. "God's blessing is on this church."

Van Dyke United Methodist has been a fixture in Odessa for 13 years and the congregation has steadily grown to about 900 families, Conwell said. The flock has outgrown the current 400-seat sanctuary, which fills up with four services each weekend. "And two of them are pretty much maxed out," Conwell said. "We've needed a new worship center for a very long time."

King said work on the project, which began a month ago, is "very much on schedule." Church officials hope to be in the new sanctuary by summer.

-- Logan D. Mabe can be reached at 269-5304 or at mabe@sptimes.com

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