Several months after revealing plans for a new $55 million worship center to its congregation, leaders of Johnson Ferry Baptist Church have taken the first step toward starting construction.
Church officials announced in a brief video last week that they’ve filed for a land-disturbance permit with the Cobb Community Development Agency.
Agency files show the church filed the request for a full site review on Thursday for six acres on Johnson Ferry Road, next to the church chapel.
A land-disturbance permit is needed for any construction work to begin, and a full site permit “allows for tree removal, site grading, and installation of project infrastructure,” according to the agency.
County filings indicate that Johnson Ferry work will be done by Croy Engineering of Marietta.
In a video posted on the church website on Friday, church officials wearing hard hats said they anticipate being able to begin the project this summer.
East Cobb News has left a message with Johnson Ferry Baptist seeking more information.
Johnson Ferry Baptist, which has 4,700 members, is located on a 37-acre campus it has occupied since 1983 on Johnson Ferry Road near Woodlawn Drive.
The 2,500-seat worship center, as revealed to Johnson Ferry members last fall, is a central component of an $84 million initiative that includes planting another church in metro Atlanta and expanding its missions.
Thus far, church members have pledged nearly $20 million for what’s being called “Forward Vision.”
As East Cobb News reported in May, church leaders have been contemplating building a new worship venue in recent years due to membership growth and to have the sprawling congregation worship under a single roof.
Currently Johnson Ferry holds a traditional worship in its main sanctuary (capacity 1,200) and three modern services in the church’s activities center, which holds 1,600.
Neither are large enough to accommodate what church leaders say they need to transform the 44-year-old faith community for the long-term future, into a “multi-generational, multi-ethnic congregation.”
“They don’t always have community together,” Shane Bruce, Johnson Ferry’s executive pastor, told East Cobb News last May.
The worship center financials are included in a Forward Vision booklet that details all the initiatives.
A total of $30.1 million from those pledges would be used to build the worship center, along with $9 million in current reserve funding as well as another $15.9 million “to be financed responsibly,” according to the booklet.
More than half of the Forward Giving funds will be used for ongoing ministry work and another $11.3 million for global missions.
In order to create space for the new worship center, Johnson Ferry Baptist acquired 1.7 acres at 919 Johnson Ferry Road next to the sanctuary that had been residential property for $2 million.
That’s close to where church officials made their announcement last week about the land-disturbance permit filing.
Church leaders said the sanctuary would continue to be used for special events. The new venue would connect with the church’s busy activities center.
Get Our Free E-Mail Newsletter!
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!
