Church brings economic revial to local community
(chicagotribune.com) The front side of the Forest Park Mall could belong to any shopping center on Roosevelt Road. Behind a stucco facade, customers hunt for groceries at Ultra Foods, shower curtains at Kmart, phones at a US Cellular store.
But enter the mall and follow the beat of a gospel band, and you’ll find yourself in a 3,500-seat sanctuary where worshipers from the Living Word Christian Center are clapping and singing hallelujahs. Rev. Bill Winston preaches while cameras project his image on giant video screens.
This is the landlord’s side of the building.
Combining Bible and business acumen, Living Word has transformed what was once an eyesore listed on a Web site called Deadmalls.com into a thriving if unusual hybrid: half mega-church, half shopping mall.
Since the nondenominational church bought the dying mall in 1998, Living Word has more than doubled to 15,000 members while creating a facility divided between a state-of-the-art worship center and the church’s commercial subsidiary at 7600 W. Roosevelt Rd.
Both sides of the mall speak to the church’s mission: not only saving souls, but also modeling economic development for a largely black congregation. Living Word has established a business school, a broadcast media center, a Christian bookstore, a kindergarten-through-8th-grade academy and its own clothing stores selling business apparel.
The church-owned Forest Park Plaza Inc., which runs the mall, has built a new facade for the building and earns rent from tenants like Kmart and Old Country Buffet.
You know that Old Country Buffet had to be in the mix! 
The article continues…
The revival has had a spinoff effect. Winston says the mall sustains 400 jobs and creates $100 million a year in taxable income, a figure Calderone says sounds about right.
Living Word is trying to replicate its mall-church at a 12-acre shopping center it bought in 2005 in Winston’s hometown of Tuskegee, Ala. And his ambitions go even further. The church has raised nearly $5 million in its attempt to buy a bank, and it is planning to start a military academy.
A new water-bottling plant, which will double as a teaching model for students at the business school, is expected to be running this summer. Winston is chairman of the bank and is listed as principal in most of the church’s enterprises. (more…)
If you are gonna do megachurch, this is the way to do it.
