16 April - Bellevue Baptist Church

The day after visiting the Gideon headquarters, I had the chance of visiting Bellevue Baptist Church in the Memphis area of Tennessee.





I had actually never heard about that church before, but once I heard that it was the church of well-known preacher Adrian Rogers, I was interested in taking a look. (I had heard him on the radio a few times and found him to be a very good preacher.) Bellevue Baptist Church is located just across the road from Mid America Baptist Theological Seminary in Cordova, TN, and it is the biggest church I have ever seen. The auditorium seats over 7,500 people and the church membership exceeds 20,000.





Since there is not enough room for all members to attend a service at the same time, there are three identical services at different times every Sunday.

But there is so much more to the church building than just the big auditorium. There are many different Sunday school rooms for different age groups. Below are some photos I took just of the rooms for the youngest age groups (in fact, these are not the actual rooms, just the entrances that lead to the rooms).





Then there is a welcome centre, a library, a bookstore and giftshop, a collection of historical items of the church and probably several other rooms that escaped my notice.



Outside the church, there is a lake, a massive parking lot, sports and athletic fields and a beautiful garden.



And then there is one more thing that Bellevue Baptist Church has become known for - three huge crosses that can be seen from miles away. The centre cross is 150 feet tall.



And this shows what is most important about the church and about any Bible-believing church - the message of the cross. It is here where justice, mercy and grace meet.

Adrian Rogers is also the founder of Love Worth Finding Ministries.