Twenty Years in a School Classroom, Then a Home of Their Own: How a Kingston Church Sold Its Manse to Build in Portmore

• Church of the Open Bible, Greater Portmore, moved into its own building in August 2015
• The congregation had worshipped in a primary school since December 1994
• The mother church sold its manse and other assets to help pay for construction
• The 4.5-acre site in Braeton can hold up to 2,000 worshippers

For more than two decades, the Church of the Open Bible in Greater Portmore had no building to call its own. Its members first gathered at Greater Portmore Primary School in December 1994, and it would take until the end of August 2015 before they could open the doors of a purpose-built sanctuary, the Gleaner reported.

The new church stands on a 4.5-acre property at the corner of Hellshire Road and East 2nd Street in Braeton, St Catherine. The land was acquired in 2010 and construction started in 2014. The building is designed to hold as many as 2,000 people, and Reverend Dr Alston Henry described it as the largest Open Bible church building in Jamaica.

What stands out is how the project was paid for. According to the Gleaner, the Kingston Open Bible Church (KOBC), the mother congregation, put significant cash into the Portmore project by selling the church manse and other assets. Members of both congregations then gave money and materials. “The majority of support came from the giving of the brethren at KOBC and Greater Portmore,” Henry said.

The church also chose to build in phases rather than wait for every dollar. The first phase, taking in the foundation, floor, columns, roof, walls and part of the administrative area, was estimated at about 80 per cent of the full building. That was enough to open for worship while the rest was still to come. “We’re providing the capacity for all to come and worship. It is the place to gather together,” Henry said.

The Gleaner report did not give a total construction cost, and it is not clear what the manse and other assets sold for. The basic approach is still clear: one congregation turned an existing property into cash so that a younger congregation could own land and a building in one of Jamaica’s fastest-growing residential areas.

For Jamaican churches, and for the diaspora members who often help fund them, the Portmore story shows a practical choice: property a church already holds can be sold to pay for property it needs more. Selling a manse means giving up housing for a pastor in exchange for a permanent worship space, and each congregation has to weigh that trade for itself. Buying land first, building in stages and opening once the structure is usable is a model many congregations still meeting in schools and rented halls could adapt, as long as the titles are secure and the plans are approved before the first block is laid.

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