FAYETTEVILLE -- Construction is under way on what will be a major addition to Fayetteville's faith community.
Fellowship Bible Church of Northwest Arkansas is building a 63,000-square-foot building on 26 acres southwest of Van Asche Drive and Arkansas 112, across the street from the 112 Drive-In, according to project designs city planners approved in October.
Web Watch
Go to fellowshipnwa.org for more information about Fellowship Bible Church of Northwest Arkansas.
Source: Staff Report
It's unclear exactly how many people the church will serve.
Mickey Rapier, Fellowship's directional leader, was unwilling to talk about the church's plans Friday.
"At this point, we aren't really ready for newspaper coverage or interviews on the Fayetteville location," Rapier said by email. "One goal of ours is to have our fingerprints everywhere and name nowhere."
Fellowship's campus at 1051 W. Pleasant Grove Road in Rogers contains a mix of worship areas, student space, administrative offices, parking and undeveloped land on a little less than 100 acres, according to Benton County property records.
In addition to Sunday morning services, the church hosts two Saturday evening services and a "Celebrate Recovery" service on Friday night. To free up space in its main worship center, Fellowship encourages congregants to attend "community worship" in its Family Center Auditorium once a month.
"For several years, our current church facility has been at capacity," Rapier said in a video posted on Fellowship's website. "It is time for us to expand our capacity, broaden our base of ministry and increase our ability to reach more people for Christ in Northwest Arkansas."
The Fayetteville expansion will include a 25,000-square-foot assembly area and nearly 800 parking spaces, according to a site improvement plan submitted by Engineering Services of Springdale. Miller Boskus Lack Architects of Fayetteville designed the building.
Rapier said in the video an unnamed family agreed to purchase land for the church.
Washington County property records show Fellowship Fayetteville LLC paid Legacy National Bank $1.6 million for the land in February.
Lamar Steiger, Fellowship's resource development director, said in a September video he expects the expansion project to cost $12.5 million. Steiger said, at that time, church members had donated $4.4 million for the Fayetteville branch and had pledged another $6 million.
The city required Fellowship to pay $86,000 for the future center turn lane on Arkansas 112. A 12-foot-wide trail is being constructed along the state highway as well for the length of the property.
The project will add to several other large churches in Fayetteville.
By comparison, Central United Methodist Church has about 150,000 square feet of space in several buildings at Dickson Street and Highland Avenue. The church last year assumed operational control of the former Wiggins Memorial United Methodist Church on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, and, in September, Central bought the Dickson Street post office property.
Brian Swain, church administrator, said Central has about 4,600 members and an average weekly attendance of 1,705.
Andy Wilson, executive leader of ministry and operations at Cross Church of Northwest Arkansas, didn't return a phone call Friday. Cross Church has five locations in Northwest Arkansas and southwest Missouri, including two sites in Fayetteville: at 3484 W. Wedington Drive and 613 S. College Ave.
Outreach magazine, a Christian publication that tracks the country's fastest-growing churches, ranked Cross Church No. 48 on its 2014 list of the largest 100 churches in America, with average attendance of 8,987. Fellowship Northwest Arkansas wasn't included on the list.
According to its website, Fellowship is a "multi-congregational" church, meaning it joins several congregations with a common set of beliefs, including the Grove Church, Samaritan House Fellowship, White River Fellowship, New Heights Church, the Church at Springdale and Grace Church.
Fellowship congregants met for several years at a Seventh-day Adventist Church in Bentonville and at Oakdale Middle School in Rogers before the first building on Pleasant Grove Road was finished in 1991. The Fellowship campus in Rogers has been expanded several times since.
Joel Walsh can be reached by email at [email protected] or on Twitter @NWAJoel
NW News on 01/20/2015