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Today's News
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Nick Munoz By Lauren Dodd Hand-held radios crackle in the background at the Charleston House Holiday Inn while a squad of greeters and parking attendants prepare for the 9 a.m. worship service. “Who needs a badge? Who needs a badge? All of God’s children need a badge!” the Rev. Jesse Waggoner tells his volunteers. “It’s very important that everyone have a map,” Waggoner says. “If you have a blue badge on, everyone will assume you know what’s going on.” July 1 was the first of three Sundays when Bible Center Church members will meet at the Holiday Inn for worship while their church on Corridor G across from Ashton Place undergoes a $1.85 million renovation and expansion. By 8:25 a.m. volunteers have moved to their posts. One stands beside a portable “Bible Center” sign on Virginia Street, signaling drivers so they won’t miss the turn. Attendants direct cars to appropriate lots. Worshippers and the hotel’s regular guests cross paths. Families from one group wear T-shirts, shorts and flip-flops. Families from the other group wear their Sunday best. Volunteers have set up 400 chairs in the makeshift sanctuary. On an average Sunday, 1,050 people come to the two morning services. Church leaders expect at least 700 for the two morning services this day. Women wearing skirts and dresses and men wearing jackets and ties file in, clutching their leather-bound, zip-up Bibles. An American flag stands to the left of the speakers’ pulpit, and a Christian flag stands to the right. Waggoner asks people to stand and recite the Pledge of Allegiance honoring the nation’s Independence Day, then to recite the pledge to the Christian flag. Also in honor of Independence Day, church leaders include “My Country ’Tis of Thee,” “America the Beautiful,” and “Battle Hymn of the Republic” in the church service. The faithful raise their voices together in patriotic song. “The word of the master must be enough,” says Waggoner, thrusting his Bible in the air while he substitutes on short notice for his senior pastor, the Rev. Shawn Thornton, who is ill. “If God says it, that’s the end of the argument. This is all we need, and we cling to it.” The Bible Center Church traces its origins to three Bible study groups that sprung up in the 1930s and united into the City Bible Center in 1942. At first, the faithful met in the shoe department of the old People’s Store, and used sheets to cover up the shoes. The church met for a time beside the South Side Bridge in what is now One Bridge Place, and spent 25 years on Kanawha Boulevard before selling the building to the Living Word Christian Center and moving in 1976 to a new building out on the corridor. Lori Deakin joined the Bible Center 12 years ago. Deakin grew up Catholic but changed churches in college after accepting the notion that she personally had to ask Jesus into her heart to be saved. “You just have a peace inside that I never had before. I was always searching,” Deakin said. “Now I come to worship here because they preach the clear message that Jesus Christ is the only way to heaven.” Thornton, 34, came to the Bible Center Church in 1997. The church’s fourth pastor, Thornton succeeded the Rev. Robert Spradling, who had retired in 1994 after 26 years. It took church leaders three years to settle on Thornton. “In the independent movement, it’s harder to know where to go looking,” Thornton said. Thornton said he likes to work his way through the Bible in a systematic and thorough fashion, and has tackled, among others, the books of Nehemiah, Ecclesiastes and Timothy. He said that the Bible Center tries to remain politically and socially neutral. His church is a large one standing beside a major highway. Before Election Day, it attracts leaflet distributors from both the Christian right and political left, Thornton said. So he posts people in his parking lots to chase them away. He thinks people don’t come to church for that. He doesn’t want to rage against abortion and pornography or lying and greed every Sunday of the year, as some evangelicals do. “If you camp out on hobby-horses, you miss out
on other issues,” Thornton said. “My training says if you teach from the
Bible in a systematic way, those issues come up. We are pro-life, or most
of us are, but it’s not one of our doctrinal positions. We’re
anti-gambling, but we don’t devote a whole Sunday to it.”
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