The New

Hope Baptist Church has come a long way since its

inception in the 1880s.

At that

time it was housed in a small, white, country church

building which it has preserved. In the 1930s, its

quarterly budget for purchasing Sunday School materials

was $12.50 - currently it's WAY up there in the

thousands of dollars.

Two years

ago New Hope took the Starr's Mill Baptist Church

(originally the Glen Grove Baptist Church) into its fold,

purchased 62 acres across the road from Starr's Mill and

is about to go into a $3 million facility. It has

announced Sunday, March 26 as the official grand opening.

The

original Starr's Mill church sits on eight acres at the

corner of Ga. highways 85 and 74, and will be used as a

youth complex.

The church

has a membership of 5,000 and is in the process of

expanding the facility on New Hope Road. Sitting on 94

acres, it has plenty of room for a number of projects.

Currently,

a $6 million expansion program is taking place and will

provide a new dining room that can seat 750, as well as a

youth cafe and meeting space. The dining room will have

dividers available to create 12 classrooms each Sunday

morning.

Three

hundred square feet of the expansion will be used for a

new library and media center. Also included are a full

gymnasium and weight room. New orchestra rehearsal space

also is included in the expansion and a 24-hour prayer

chapel. The church has a 30-member orchestra that plays

on Sunday mornings. The former rehearsal space will be

renovated into additional space for its pre-school.

High at the

top of its wish list is building a mission training

center to house a short-term mission training facility.

More than 200 lay people were put through the program

last year, with graduates serving in various mission

fields both in the United States as well as overseas. The

average length of service considered to be short-term is

anywhere from ten days to ten weeks. The graduates are

all volunteers and pay a part of their plane fare and

expenses.

What's in

the future? Perhaps an assisted living center, as well as

additional ball fields.

A new

program for singles will begin April 25 at the South

Complex. The programs will begin at 7 p.m. and will be

led by the Rev. Al Mead, associate pastor for cross

cultural/singles/sports outreach.

The Rev.

Barry Thompson, associate pastor for discipleship, firmly

stated that New Hope Baptist Church is one church with

two locations. "The same philosophy and Biblical

teachings are the same at both the North Complex and the

South Complex," he said.

Worship

services at the North Complex are Sunday at 10:45 a.m.

and at the South Complex at 9 a.m.

New Hope

Baptist Church can be reached at 770-461-4337.