FORT WAYNE, Ind. (BP)–Over the next three years, Come As You Are Church plans to build 120 housing units -– half of them single-family homes -– on the 76 acres it owns in the south part of Fort Wayne, Ind.
It’s a for-profit, $70 million, Kingdom-building enterprise for the church where about 600 people currently worship on Sunday mornings.
“We’re here because the pastor [Anthony Payton] had a vision,” said Alexander Hurt, a Boston-area pastor and one of the speakers at events held the first weekend in June to dedicate the property and project to God.
“The Residences at South Anthony Pointe is going to be a national model for transforming cities and towns,” Hurt said.
Architectural renderings of the site and house plans were unveiled June 2. Drawn to link up with current city streets, the mixed-use development features a variety of Midwestern-style homes and a “back door” entry/exit point so residents can avoid the heavily traveled intersection of South Anthony Boulevard and U.S. 27. It also includes commercial development fronting South Anthony.
Payton said the residential and commercial development of the Residences of South Anthony Pointe will offer jobs and ownership opportunities on the south side of Fort Wayne. The development of high-quality housing and state-of-the-art commercial space, the pastor said, “is a welcome addition to a part of Fort Wayne that has experienced decades of disinvestment.”
The plan -– predicated on market research -– is for 27 single-family homes and 50 townhomes to be sold the first year. The church will handle the financing. Engage Ministries of Brockton, Mass., is the developer, an urban renewal ministry arm of Kingdom Church of Brockton. Hurt is president of Engage Ministries and pastor of Kingdom Church.
Payton announced two additional initiatives during the celebrative Sunday worship service June 4. The first: a prime-time slot on satellite television recently being offered for a tenth of the usual price. The 7 p.m. hour would be beamed off nine satellites reaching 167 nations, Payton said.
Meanwhile, a 50-acre parcel with high regional visibility not far from Come As You Are’s current location is being held for the church, available at a fraction of its cost — at the same time that investors are expressing serious interest in the church’s current location at prices that far exceed what was paid for the 10-acre property four years ago.
The congregation roared its approval at the pastor’s report — a far cry from the 12 people who called Payton as pastor 10 years ago. Back then, the group was $200,000 in debt and hurting.
“I was able to introduce through the grace of God an environment for healing,” Payton recounted. “As they began to heal, they started to be excited about being part of church again…. I felt the church in order to grow needed to be part of a denomination that would help it to grow, and they unanimously agreed to be Southern Baptist.” The congregation now channels 10 percent of its weekly offerings through Southern Baptists’ Cooperative Program to support state, national and international ministries and through Indiana’s Northeast Baptist Association for regional outreach.
One wall of Payton’s home study is filled with books on theology; the opposite wall is filled with books on business -– a juxtaposition of interests and developed skills that Payton sees God as tapping for His purposes.
It started with the month Payton spent on a kibbutz in Israel before he accepted the call to pastor Come As You Are.
“I saw a community working together to strengthen the entire town,” Payton said. “I saw how a desert had been transformed because the people worked together.”
The area of Fort Wayne known as “Southtown” needs transforming. It’s an older part of town -– smaller wooden homes, larger lot sizes and big trees. One sign of official neglect is obvious: Even major streets need resurfacing. Over the last several years, commercial enterprises one by one quietly closed their doors until only a Kmart with a pockmarked parking lot remained.
His understanding of the vision God gave him was much smaller than what God actually had in mind, Payton now admits. The pastor thought God was directing him to find property, establish a church in the center of it and build homes around it.
First things first: the $200,000 debt.
“We tried to think of creative ways to reduce this debt,” Payton said. “Around us buildings became vacant. We bought one and leased it out, and the first year we gave $40,000 to missions as a result of that.”
In less than three years, the debt was gone and the pastor started looking for property. After a three-year span, Payton and his wife Sandy led the congregation -– then about 100 people -– on a six-block walk south on South Anthony Boulevard and across U.S. 27 to Come As You Are’s new location in a renovated tool and die business. The building was 10 times the size of the church’s previous building.
Thirty days later, Payton bought a 76-acre parcel adjacent to the 10 acres that came with the tool and die shop, and his kibbutz vision began taking shape, even though the church would be on the edge rather than in the center of the subdivision.
The community began to stir, as if awakened from a seasonal slumber. Menard’s, a regionally prominent do-it-yourself store (similar to a Home Depot) opened; Wal-Mart announced plans to open a Super Center; and Kmart put up a huge banner declaring: “We love you Southtown; we’re here to stay.”
Payton connected with Hurt, an influential urban revitalization advocate, who connected him with a project manager and architect, as well as the entire Engaged Ministries team.
With the anticipated acquisition of the additional 50 acres, Payton now sees how God has positioned the church to be at the center of the land inside the entire southeastern quadrant of the Fort Wayne beltway, a much bigger slice of the city than the pastor had originally envisioned.
“This is our time,” Payton told the congregation. “It has nothing to do with us. This is just the time God is using to accomplish His purposes…. [D]on’t let us stop giving now. This ain’t the time to get cheap.
“You can’t hobo yourself at this level,” at a juncture when, as Payton put it, “we’re ministering to black, white, Jew and gentile for the glory of God.”
Other activities during the “Experience the Renaissance” weekend included a Friday evening worship service with Floyd Flake of Brooklyn, N.Y., as the keynote speaker, described by Payton as “the pre-eminent voice of faith-based revitalization of urban commercial and residential development.”
A men’s conference Saturday morning included segments on ministry involvement, breaking addictions, leadership and leaving a legacy.
A “Homeowners 101” workshop was offered at the church’s previous location, which now houses the church’s youth ministry.
More than 3,000 people crowded into an elongated tent on the church property Saturday evening to hear the Grammy award-winning artist Israel & New Breed.
“Did you see that?” the pastor asked his congregation Sunday morning about the Saturday night concert. “Black, white, Hispanic -– all races and ages and denominations together. That’s what the Kingdom of God looks like!”
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