Louisville's St. Stephen ready to build $13 million sanctuary

By Peter Smith • psmith@courier-journal.com • October 26, 2008

St. Stephen Church, the largest African-American congregation in Kentucky, plans a new sanctuary that will be double the size of its current building in the California neighborhood.

The church will build a $13 million, 3,400-seat sanctuary west of 15th Street and north of Kentucky Street. It will sit across Kentucky from its current 1,700-seat sanctuary, said the pastor, the Rev. Kevin Cosby.

The project has long been in the planning stages, but Cosby said the church recently acquired the properties needed to go forward.

He planned to announce the project at the church's five weekend services beginning last night. He said the church is packing its 1,700-seat sanctuary for four services and its 1,200-seat satellite site in Jeffersonville, Ind., for a fifth.

"We have maxed out," he said.

He said churches that begin to get complacent in their success head into decline.

"We've always been willing to take calculated risks to advance the Kingdom of God," Cosby said, "and to be difference-makers in our community."

Gertie Owens, who leads the church board of trustees, said the new sanctuary will enable more people to worship at the same time.

"Everybody's just excited about it," she said. "Now we won't have to have as many services."

Cosby, who will be marking his 29th anniversary as pastor today, said that when he arrived, the church was "surrounded by liquor stores and nightclubs," but it has since acquired about 17 acres of contiguous property.

"God literally gave us the land of the Hittites, Canaanites, the Jebusites and the Bud Lights," Cosby said, paraphrasing a biblical passage about the Israelites who conquered the Promised Land from other tribes.

Most inner-city churches seeking to expand have to move out of the neighborhoods they originally served, he said.

Cosby said that the church would break ground in 2009 and hopes to open the new facility in 2010.

The church will hold a pledge drive in 2009, and has been approved for bank financing, he said.

The amount borrowed will depend on the amounts pledged up front, Cosby said, adding that contributions to the church have remained steady despite the economic slump.

He also projects that more people will attend the expanded church.

"This is not blind faith, it's calculated faith," he said. "We've done our homework. We realize as more people come to the church and are discipled, they will be inclined to support the church (financially)."

The new building will have large spaces to accommodate programs for singles, youth and the church choirs, while the existing sanctuary will be renovated to serve as a children's ministry area.

Cosby said the new sanctuary will be a functional brick building with few of the ornamental trappings of a church -- no steeple or stained-glass windows -- but plenty of large screens and modern sound systems.

"Every technology that the secular society uses to communicate its message must be baptized by the church," he said.

St. Stephen is one of Louisville's main examples of a megachurch, generally defined as a large, multipurpose congregation that typically conducts large, high-tech worship services while holding numerous small-group activities on its seven-day-a-week campus.

Cosby said he studied the approaches taken by numerous megachurches around the country, and in particular, drew from the work of Bob Russell, who guided Louisville's largest congregation, Southeast Christian Church, through four decades of growth.

"I've learned from him, I've sat at his feet," Cosby said.

Mayor Jerry Abramson's office applauded news of the expansion.

"Obviously this is a great church that serves a lot of people," said his spokesman Chris Poynter, "and we will work with them in every capacity to make sure their expansion is easily accommodated."

Metro Council member George Unseld, who represents the California neighborhood, agreed.

"The church is growing," he said. "It's been growing for the last 20 years."

Reporter Peter Smith can be reached at (502) 582-4469.