8,000 Members in 1988, About 600 Today: An Alabama Megachurch Lists Its 19 Acres for $28.5 Million

• Dauphin Way Baptist Church in Mobile, Alabama, has listed its 19-acre property for $28.5 million.
• The sanctuary can seat up to 3,000 people and is currently set up for 1,900.
• Membership has fallen from 8,000 in 1988, when the church moved to the site, to about 600.
• Former pastors include Southern Baptist leaders Jerry Vines and Clint Pressley.

A Southern Baptist church in Mobile that once drew thousands is putting its campus on the market. MinistryWatch reported that Dauphin Way Baptist Church has listed its property for $28.5 million.

The church was founded in 1904 and moved to its current 19-acre site in 1988. Its sanctuary can hold up to 3,000 people and is currently configured for 1,900. Membership was 8,000 when it moved; today it is about 600. Its past pastors include Jerry Vines, later co-pastor of First Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Florida, and president of the Southern Baptist Convention; the evangelist Darrell Robison; and Clint Pressley, the immediate past SBC president, who now leads Hickory Grove Baptist Church in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Pastor Lee Merck confirmed to several media outlets that the sale is part of a strategic plan to rethink the congregation.

The report placed the sale in a wider trend. Church researcher Sam Rainer was cited as saying that the massive, single-site church was no longer the focus of many churches’ planning, and that churches with worship space for 200 to 600 are now ideal.

A campus built for 8,000 members is a heavy burden for 600. Maintenance, insurance and utilities do not shrink with the congregation. The Mobile listing shows how a church can turn an oversized campus into capital for a new, smaller home. Jamaican congregations planning new buildings should think carefully about size: a building sized for a hoped-for congregation can become a liability if growth does not come. For investors and developers, large church campuses in growing cities can be rare opportunities, especially where the land can be rezoned. For the congregation itself, the sale price and the plan for spending it will shape its ministry for decades.

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