By far the largest church in our fair city is the New Life Church, so me and Miss P decided to take a closer look at it one day.

First and foremost it is enormous, three separate buildings on a huge plot of land.   It was the vision of one man, Ted Haggard.   He started small, holding worship services in his house.   He drew lots of people to these services and the neighbors were complaining that there was no where to park.  So he started with a small strip mall church and then dreamed up this mega-church.    They would draw about 14k people at the services.  He was an important evangelical figure, until he was involved in a scandal and forced to resign.    It was a popular media story and the press swarmed all over it.  The turmoil caused a number of members to quit, but the church continued on.

Then there was the shooting at the church, some crazed young man came in and started shooting, killing two young sisters.  He was in turn shot by an off duty security guard, then committed suicide.   She was raked over the coals by the media, but she did a good thing by stopping this madman.

It’s hard to capture just how big this building is.

Then there is another huge building, dubbed “the tent”.

And then there is this building, another large structure where they coordinate prayers for the world.

Membership in this church is down from the highest levels, but they still get about 10k people on a Sunday and they also have a service downtown at the high school for people who don’t want to come all the way north to the main building.  For better or worse it is a part of the local landscape, and it is a great place to walk one’s dog.