Boom Church

It's a far cry from Saone (see above) to San Antonio, but pastoral problems are similar the world over. William Stuart McBirnie, pastor of Trinity Baptist Church, doesn't have to resort to high-diving to keep a roof over his congregation's head. But his success has been as notable, in its way, as Father Simon's. Though his church was started only two years ago with 94 members, it now has 929. Trinity Baptist has built a $56,000 fellowship hall, a $6,500 youth building, a $17,500 parsonage and a goo-capacity amphitheater. A $125,000 education building is half-finished. The church itself ($500,000) will be started in about two years.

This week 31-year-old Pastor McBimie hung out the welcome sign to San Antonio for his regular Wednesday-night Bible lectures. A member of the congregation had staked Pastor McBirnie and his wife to an extensive tour of the Holy Land, and the pastor came back loaded with color slides and notes, from which he has been making carefully constructed, well illustrated lecture-sermons. Topics, announced as much as four months in advance, include such eye-catchers as "Where Did Cain Get His Wife?"* and "The Lost. City of Edom and Obadiah's Strange Message."

Pastor McBirnie ("Brother Mac" to his congregation) left the well-established South Fort Worth Baptist Church (membership: 1,000) to join Trinity Baptist's founders before they had so much as a place to worship. He is glad he came; so is his congregation. Said he last week: "I caught the vision and enthusiasm of these people. I knew they meant it when they said they were building one of the great churches of the South."

* McBirnie's answer: Cain must have married his sister. The only woman in the world at that time not his sister or his niece would have been his mother, Eve.

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