The founder of Hobby Lobby has donated $7 million to First Baptist Church of Dallas to help rebuild the 1890 sanctuary destroyed by fire last year.
Pastor Robert Jeffress announced the gift during Sunday morning worship Dec. 8. The Hobby Lobby gift was presented as a matching gift — to be received if the church raised an equal amount — and one family in the church provided the full match, Jeffress said.
David Green
Total estimated cost for the rebuilding and related improvements — including 16 new stained-glass windows telling the biblical narrative — is $127 million, Jeffress said. Insurance will cover about $100 million of that, with the other $27 million to come from the church.
Jeffress said the church already has raised about $5 million toward rebuilding. Added to the combined $14 million, that gets the church’s total currently to $19 million toward the $27 million goal. The downtown Dallas church has a two-year unified budget that, once met, will overflow into the building fund.
Jeffress said plans already are drawn and construction should start sometime in early 2026.
The structure that burned July 19, 2024, is not the church’s primary worship space today. A new worship space — in an ultra-modern style — opened in 2013. The historic sanctuary, however, is where legendary pastors George W. Truett and W.A. Criswell preached. Before the fire, it was still used for weddings and funerals and special events.
When the new worship space was built in 2013, along with other major construction, that $130 million project at First Baptist Dallas was cited as being the largest Protestant church construction project in modern history.
View of smoke and flames rising from the historic sanctuary of First Baptist Church of Dallas July 19. (BNG photo)
Although one of the nation’s original megachurches, First Baptist Dallas today draws about 3,300 people to Sunday worship, well below the threshold to be considered among the largest churches in the nation. It remains a megachurch, however, and reports membership of 16,000. Its property spans several city blocks in downtown Dallas.
The church’s current two-year budget goal is $95 million to fund all church operations for 2025 and 2026 as well as some property needs.
Hobby Lobby founder David Green lives in Oklahoma City and is a member of Council Road Baptist Church in Bethany, a suburb. He was the founder and primary funder of the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C., reportedly pouring $500 million into that project. The Green family all are significant funders of evangelical ministries, but they do not typically give to church construction projects.
First Baptist Dallas, of course, is not just any church. It is one of the most significant and historic churches in the Southern Baptist Convention. Although there are many larger churches in Dallas based on attendance, there are few with the high profile of First Baptist.
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