New Hope

Baptist Church will host an opening celebration for its

new South Campus near Starr's Mill March 27.

The

multipurpose education and worship center will

accommodate 1,000 worshipers and features staging and

lighting to rival Sams auditorium, according to associate

pastor the Rev. Barry Thompson, who designed the facility

with assistance from the architectural firm of Chapman,

Griffin, Lanier, Sussenbach.

The first

phase of the three-year expansion for New Hope is truly a

financial miracle. Rejecting help from professional

fund-raisers, Thompson said the New Hope congregation

succeeded in raising $10.6 million, $3 million more than

the professionals predicted. How did they do it? Prayer

and good leadership, was Thompson's response.

Recalling

how the church managed to purchase the 62-acre tract at

the intersection of Ga. highways 74 and 85, Thompson said

their fund-raising team, led by Steve Kinney, challenged

the church's members to raise the entire $550,000

purchase price on one Sunday. The original proposal was

to ask for half. But through divine intervention, the

ante was raised and was met.

"We

went to the closing with the check and five years of

baptism records," Thompson said. It turned out that

the land owner was persuaded to sell the property when he

learned that New Hope was a mission-minded,

strong-on-evangelizing, church where he could create and

leave a legacy.

New Hope

maintains one phone number and one senior pastor, the

Rev. John Avant, who ministers to both campuses, but the

church's influence is worldwide. Currently, New Hope

conducts missionary work in London, where Thompson claims

only 1 percent of the population goes to church, Belarus,

formerly Yugoslavia, and New York City.

"God's

opened phenomenal doors," Thompson said. "New

Hope in Fayetteville, Ga. is touching the nation and

touching the world." He said there are exciting

plans in store for their New York ministry and plans also

are underway to send a missionary team to Africa.

Avant

supports church's outreach in its mission statement,

"To be a people in a relationship with God

experiencing his reviving presence, enabling us to

supernaturally impact our community, nation and

world."