New Mega Church Offers More than Worship

(02/03/06 - RALEIGH) (WTVD) -- You go to church and you expect pews and prayers, not laundry rooms and Starbucks. A new Triangle mega-church has all that and much, much more.

A concert-quality stage, seating for 1,500 and three giant HDTV screens, but make no mistake, music is only part of the message here.

The auditorium was built for the Gospel, part of the new 90,000-square-foot Hope Community Church in Raleigh where Senior Pastor Mike Lee takes center stage.

"We're teaching the same message the traditional church is, just not in the same way," he said.

Twelve years ago, Pastor Lee's first Triangle congregation consisted of 14 people. Now, it takes 21 staffers and 1,000 volunteers just to keep track of a flock of about 2,000.

"We call it an organism not an organization because we feel it has a life to it," Lee said.

The church includes special rooms for kids of all ages while mom and dad are worshipping and even a café that serves Starbucks Coffee! Lee says the mission is to make it easy for people to connect with God.

"We have medical teams on staff every week," Lee said. "We have a security team here, FBI agents, police officer."

The church doesn't just have fun and games to appeal to young children, there's also an elaborate college lounge for to older students. It has a free washer and dryer room for them to do their laundry and with five X-Box video game consoles and several Playstations in the youth classroom.

Pastor Lee says it's all very surprising to him.

"We are told we're a mega church so I assume we are, but I don't know we never set out to be a mega church," Lee said.

Every Sunday, "mega" is exactly what Hope Community Church becomes. according to parishioner Charlene Forward.

"Even when you walk in the building, you feel it its different," she said. "There's something very different about it, so that's why we keep coming back."

The interdenominational church has been holding services for two weeks now, but the grand opening is this Sunday. It cost more than $10 million dollars to build and it's already so popular, they're adding a third service on Sundays.

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