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Arlington church’s ‘Red Sea’ transition paves way for deepened unity, continued ministry strength
It was a Red Sea moment.
In August, Jared Wellman led hundreds of members of Tate Springs Baptist Church across the busy lanes of West Pleasant Ridge Road from the church’s recently sold facility on the south side to its newly renovated home just north.
Policemen stopped traffic for the throng, for whom the symbolic walk celebrated the culmination of decades of work in what they called Project Crossover—the uniting of the church’s scattered facilities on only one side of the street.
The church’s split addresses had caused issues for years. Wellman recalled his own confusion when, during his initial visit to the church to interview for the lead pastor position eight years earlier, he accidentally pulled into the wrong side of campus.
“It was confusing,” he said.
And potentially dangerous.
“Doing church on two sides of the street in two different addresses caused young families to have to walk across four lanes of traffic in the mornings to drop kids off in the nursery and in the children’s building on the north side before heading to the adult education areas in the south.
“We have a big family model here,” Wellman said. “We even have four generations of the same family worshiping together. We want to help families stick together in a world that is falling apart.
“It wasn’t unusual for families to be split into three separate buildings on Sundays.”
While Project Crossover began in earnest a few years ago, the vision to move across the street had really been ongoing for 40 years.
“The entire goal was to move all our operations onto our proverbial Promised Land. We would cross over so that people would see that the Lord is mighty. … He is a God who wants to move His people forward.”
A long-term, landlocked problem
The problem was obvious long before Wellman’s tenure began.
In the 1980s, Pastor Charles Clary, who planted 11 churches with Tate Springs, recognized that the south side, where the church had been located since 1895, was landlocked. With an eye to the future, the church purchased acreage to the north in 1985.
During the ensuing 40 years, Arlington exploded. Pleasant Ridge mushroomed into four busy lanes. Tate Springs built two education buildings on the north property.
“As the years went by, each pastor called to Tate Springs felt the same desire to move across the street. They did their part to carry the torch,” Wellman said, noting that former Tate Springs pastor and current Southern Baptists of Texas Foundation Executive Director Bart McDonald was among those convinced of the need to move north.
Under Wellman’s leadership, Project Crossover officially launched a few years ago.
“We employed the Israelites’ language of crossing the Jordan after 40 years,” Wellman said, explaining that the church paid off debt, renovated the buildings on the north side, and finally sold the south side property, including the familiar octagonal worship center.
“The entire goal was to move all our operations onto our proverbial Promised Land,” Wellman said. “We would cross over so that people would see that the Lord is mighty. … He is a God who wants to move His people forward.”
‘The best kept secret in the Southern Baptist world’
The move brought challenges, and Wellman credits the Southern Baptists of Texas Foundation with helping “immeasurably.”
McDonald, Wellman’s longtime spiritual mentor, returned to the church when Wellman became pastor.
“Bart rejoined the church and became a Sunday school teacher. We leaned on the foundation for counsel in a plethora of things, such as the business end of selling the south property,” Wellman said.
The foundation began consulting with Tate Springs after Wellman’s arrival, assisting with annual budget preparation and stewardship advising, McDonald said.
He said the foundation provided secured financing to the church, approving loans and assisting with refinancing debt. After Tate Springs paid that debt off early with an internal capital campaign, the foundation provided financing for renovations at the new campus as the church prepared to sell its southside facility.
When it came time to sell the south property, the church hired the foundation to represent it in the sale: negotiating contracts, researching potential buyers, and running point to get the eventual deal finalized, McDonald said. The foundation will continue to offer support as the church constructs a new sanctuary, he added.
“Without the foundation’s assistance, we could not have ‘crossed over,’” Wellman said, calling the foundation “the best kept secret in the Southern Baptist world.”
He advised “any church wishing to expand or do business” to pick up the phone and get the foundation’s counsel and help.
“Now everybody can see everybody. There are a lot more opportunities for fellowship, a lot more community. We are excited to get over to one side together.”
‘Mom church’ of Arlington
Tate Springs also found that its reputation in the community served it well in relocating, as bankers, realtors, and most of Arlington had heard positive things about the church.
Even so, the move was not without “giants in the land” to overcome, the pastor added. For decades, since the 1990s, Tate Springs had planted churches across Arlington.
“We basically gave ourselves away, becoming the ‘mom church’ in Arlington,” Wellman said. The attrition of members to other church plants affected growth.
Finding a buyer for the south side facility also proved challenging. The church prayed for a like-minded gospel partner to acquire the property, and this finally happened. Wellman realized the pastor of the congregation now meeting at the old Tate Springs facility had actually been his student at Southwestern Seminary.
Renovation of the north side buildings also had to occur and be paid for, Wellman said. The interiors of the old education buildings were gutted, a 300-person worship space was created upstairs, and Sundays were retooled to accommodate multiple services to serve the congregation.
Immediate future goals include a plan to build a skybridge and foyer to unite the two north side buildings and to break ground on a new worship center to seat 600.
“It’s a blessing to be all in one place now,” said Sandra Haynie, who came to Tate Springs with her husband as young marrieds nearly 60 years ago. “We have seen lots of changes—and it’s all good. It’s just the Lord working, His timing. It’s exciting.”
For longtime Tate Springs member and operations manager Bobby Cross, the move has made the church more accessible and safer—with fewer entrances and no need to navigate traffic. No longer do Arlington police officers have to work shifts as crossing guards on Sundays.
“Now everybody can see everybody,” Cross said. “There are a lot more opportunities for fellowship, a lot more community. We are excited to get over to one side together.”
On Aug. 31, the church held its first services in the Promised Land to the north.
Weeks before, following the finalization of the sale of the south property, when Wellman and members marched across the road, the pastor carried a pottery shard from Mount Ebal in Israel. On the other side, he spoke from Deuteronomy 27 and Joshua 8 about the stones of remembrance erected by the Israelites after they crossed the Jordan. Wellman then led the congregation in a prayer of dedication for the new property.
“We prayed the Lord would miraculously get us over to the north in the 40th year [following Clary’s original vision],” Wellman said. “He did.”
For more information about the Southern Baptists of Texas Foundation, visit sbtexasfoundation.com.
