DALLAS — First Baptist Church will hold its Sunday worship service at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center for the second consecutive week after a fire decimated the downtown Dallas church’s historic 133-year-old sanctuary.
The service will begin at 11 a.m. Sunday in the same arena it was held in last week. It will also be livestreamed through the church’s usual channels, church officials announced.
First Baptist Dallas executive pastor Dr. Ben Lovvorn said in a video announcement Friday the decision was made for the safety of attendees despite “incredible progress” made since the fire last week.
"God has been good through this week," Lovvorn said in a video the church posted to social media Friday. "He’s answered so many prayers and we’ve made incredible progress. As you can see, the historic sanctuary and the rest of our campus is still very much a work site, a work in progress. For that reason and for your safety, we’re going to gather together this Sunday again at the Dallas Convention Center."
"God is sovereign," Lovvorn continued. "He can work even the worst things together for good."
The company Belfor Property Restoration is working on securing the foundation of the building. Crews at the scene told WFAA they're installing beams and scaffolding to shore up the walls of the sanctuary are secure.
They expect to have this completed by the end of next week.
"We're reminded that the church is the people of God, and we're confident that God is going to do even greater things than we can ask or imagine," Lovvorn said.
Friday’s announcement came after Lovvorn announced Wednesday that the church had received formal approval from the city to begin working to preserve the three walls of the church that stood after the four-alarm fire on July 19. Just days after the fire, First Baptist Dallas’ senior pastor Robert Jeffress promised to rebuild the sanctuary.
“Much work has been done to remediate and restore and repair our worship center so that we can come back and gather for worship here,” Lovvorn added.
He said they’re testing infrastructure like electricity, internet and media servers and expect to be able to worship back at First Baptist Dallas next Sunday.
Dallas Fire-Rescue also said Friday that the work to shore up the structure of the church’s sanctuary has to be finished for crews to safely access the building and investigate the fire. That process is expected to last about two weeks.
Dallas Fire-Rescue is leading the investigation into the fire with help from the ATF.