When the clock strikes 12 on Sundays, the floodgates open just as the church bells finish ringing.From one corner of Golden Springs, cars from hundreds of worshippers parade single file onto Greenbrier-Dear Road from Sacred Heart of Jesus Catholic Church. They jockey for space with cars turning from St. Mark United Methodist Church, and less than half a mile up Golden Springs Road, hundreds more pour from Harvest Church of God.
“I’m pretty much the last to leave,” said Pat Diggs, youth minister at Harvest, which serves up to 800 worshippers most Sunday mornings. When all those cars get lined up to go, the wait can make a sermon seem short.
“It takes awhile, but I’m always standing around talking, trying to figure out where to go for lunch.”
Diggs laughed, but that kind of post-service fellowship has become common with the area’s larger churches. Some congregations joke about that “fellowship half hour,” and consider it part of the reward of being a big church serving a lot of families.
In addition to traffic, those congregations try to find a way to still be close-knit and serve families with an individual touch. It can be tough, especially for congregations that draw almost 1,000 – or 2,000 – worshippers and have a handful of pastors running various programs.
Communication within the church is crucial, as are other elements that allow members to feel they’re “owners” of the church.
At Hill Crest Baptist Church, reputed to be Calhoun County’s biggest now, a gymnasium, video game room, workout room and walking trail in the church’s new family life center provide a connecting point.
On a recent morning, a dozen or so church members and their friends circled the track or used the weight-lifting equipment. In the other part of the building is the maze of Sunday School rooms that offer the prelude to the Sunday morning worship for about 1,800 people.
Carts help people get to the church from various sections of the parking lots. The service time is early so Hill Crest’s lots are emptying about the same time other congregations in the neighborhood are just warming up.
“People have noticed,” said the Rev. Rick Reaves, pastor at Hill Crest Baptist Church on U.S. 431 in Saks. “They say, ‘Boy, that’s a sight when Hill Crest lets out.’”
The logjam drew the notice of a representative from the Southern Baptist Convention on a recent Sunday, Reaves said. Taking 20 to 30 minutes to exit was a problem, the representative said, but it’s one Reaves and his members accept as part of doing business.
The church is working on other exits to make departure smoother and safer. A request has been put into add a turn lane or access lane to U.S. 431. More exits are also planned for lots at the rear of the church, which would empty cars into the resi-dential area behind Hill Crest.
“Any time in this county you have 1,800 people leave at one time, it’s going to be something,” said Reaves, who has been at the church 25 years, the last 10 as its pastor. “It’s probably more of a problem for people we aren’t in touch with, but I haven’t received any negative feedback from it.”
When con-gregations grow fast, it presents challenges to keep the members in touch with each other. Diggs said the Wednes-day night meal at Harvest is a main fellowship point, then the youth are shuttled to another Harvest building about a mile away for their programs and service.
“We have to keep them connected,” Diggs said of the 100 to 115 youth he pastors. About 10 sing in the adult choir, which serves the whole church instead of having a separate youth choir. The younger members can also be in the praise band with the older members so they feel they have a stake in the church beyond their Wednesday night program.
“We try to teach them that they are pretty much the church of tomorrow and get them connected that way,” he said.
Other things to be dealt with include the growing ranks of associate and assistant ministers. Reaves, who has seven associate pastors, said all of the associates run several ministries at the church. Part of their training under him as senior pastor includes the opportunity to preach. He said that will come in handy if the church gets so big it has to break up into separate Sunday morning services again, as it did for five years before building its new worship center in 1991.
Before the associate ranks were built, that schedule could wear a preacher out, he said, with two services in the morning and another at night.
“I’m thank-ful that all my associates can preach and preach well,” he said.
The original church building, built in 1984 after the congregation left its Moore Avenue site, houses the administration portion of the church. Directional signs – a necessity at the sprawling complex – are around every corner to point the way to another portion.
The original building is the size of an average Calhoun County Church. It’s now dwarfed by the worship center, The Rock (the family life and education building). When the congregation boomed, it added a marquee sign, and it could use a traf-fic light at its entrance to the main highway, Reaves said.
Behind the church, on some three acres recently ac-quired along a residential street, Reaves can envision exits and easier access to his church.
“The people around here have been very understanding of the traffic problems we create,” he said. “I have to thank the neighborhood for being gracious to us.”
