A Vanishing Mega Church in North Lakeland

Published: Saturday, March 7, 2015 at 11:00 p.m. Last Modified: Saturday, March 7, 2015 at 11:00 p.m.

In this alternate history, the congregation would have gathered to commemorate 30 years since the opening service was held at the North Lakeland sanctuary Feb. 10, 1985.

Instead, the hulking, octagonal structure, a building whose construction anticipated the national rise of megachurches, will soon crumble without ceremony.

"It really feels like a dear old friend is going to die," said Faith Turnage Hallock, a Lakeland resident who attended Carpenter's Home Church and its affiliated Evangel Christian School. "I was literally in tears when I found out. I know it's a building, but what people don't understand is to those of us who grew up there and love it, it was more than just a building; it was part of our life."

It has been a decade since Polk County's largest church sanctuary was known as Carpenter's Home Church. The structure had been home to Without Walls Central Church from 2005 until its services fizzled out in 2011.

But for many in Polk County, the sanctuary still represents Carpenter's Home, the church that inhabited the building for two decades.

Hallock met her husband of 18 years when both were youths attending the church. Other former members talked of getting married or being baptized or seeing children or grandchildren baptized in the church.

Hallock, 41, created a Facebook page, "I Used To Be A CHC Kid!" in 2009. She has posted links to news articles about Without Walls, culminating in a report that the property had been sold to Cook Development in Daytona Beach, which plans to raze the church building and convert a 1920s-era structure formerly home to Evangel Christian School into an assisted-living facility.

"Heartbreaking," one woman wrote in a typical comment reacting to that news. Amid the sorrow, though, Hallock and others say the imminent destruction has spurred them to share happy memories of Carpenter's Home Church.

"It stamped our life forever," said Lou Frye, who attended the church with his family from 1985 to 2003, commuting from Brandon in the early years before moving closer. "Although we were already born again, when we got there it was almost like we got born again, again."

Read more from the original source:
A Vanishing Mega Church in North Lakeland