A new church is arising in Lakeland, and a familiar name will lead it.
Jay Dennis, who led the Church at the Mall for 21 years before retiring in 2017, will return to the pulpit when City Central Church begins holding weekly services in January. The church recently installed a blue sign at the former St. Joseph’s Academy, a property at 310 Frank Lloyd Way now owned by Florida Southern College.
“I never dreamed that I would be part of a new church, start a church plant,” Dennis said. “And that was probably the furthest thing from my mind.”
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But Dennis, 62, said that last year he began feeling the call to create a church, and he began to pray about the possibility. When the opportunity arose to lease a sanctuary that wasn’t being used, Dennis said he felt compelled to create City Central Church.
The two-acre property includes a large classroom building to the west. The Diocese of Orlando bought the property in 2008, and it became the site for St. Joseph’s Academy, one of Lakeland’s oldest private schools.
The Catholic school abruptly closed in spring of 2020 amid declining enrollment. Florida Southern College bought the property in June for $4.5 million for use by its Ann Blanton Edwards School of Nursing and Health Sciences graduate program.
FSC spokeswoman Kelly Semrau said the college is focused on renovating the 55,000-square-foot former school building on the tract’s west side for classrooms and laboratories.
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The sanctuary is not ready for renovations, which will be more costly, Semrau said by email. She said Florida Southern intends to use the entire space eventually for its nursing program.
Florida Southern has no timetable for how long City Central Church will be able to use the sanctuary, Semrau said. Dennis said he hopes his church will occupy the space for three to five years.
Dennis said the new church indirectly arose from a business deal pursued by a close friend, Randy Ferreira. The pastor described his thoughts as he considered the idea last year.
“As I continued to pray about it, I thought, ‘If this is God, I need a tangible demonstration or tangible sign that this really is for me,’” he said. “I’m 62 years old; I don’t want to miss it. I didn’t want to miss what God wanted.”
Dennis said he “put out a fleece,” a reference to the biblical story of the prophet Gideon, who interpreted God’s will from dew that appeared on a lamb’s fleece he had left out in seeking divine guidance. Dennis said he has only sought direct signs from God three times.
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He decided he would only consider forming a church if Ferreira suggested the idea. The two had never discussed such a prospect, but Dennis said Ferreira, a developer of apartments, sent him an email last year saying he was considering buying the former St. Joseph’s property and converting the classrooms into apartments.
“He said, ‘But there’s a church attached to it, too. What do you think about it?’” Dennis said. “So he brought up the subject of starting a church. So when I heard that, I knew that God was in it.”
Ferreira put in a bid on the property, but Dennis later learned that Florida Southern was also pursuing it. Dennis said he talked to FSC President Anne Kerr, whom he calls “a dear friend,” and Ferreira decided to withdraw his bid.
Kerr suggested that Florida Southern might lease the church building after buying the property, Dennis said.
“It is a mutually beneficial situation,” Semrau said by email. “Also, this church will be very careful with that part of the property.”
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The building in the South Lake Morton Historic District began in 1963 as Southside Baptist Church. The exterior reflects a traditional church design, with a portico featuring four Ionic columns and a towering spire topped with a cross.
City Central Church held a prayer gathering on Oct. 31 and a pre-launch service last weekend that drew 103 people, Dennis said. The church plans to hold its first official service on Jan. 16.
Dennis will handle preaching duties as the church begins with only one service on Sunday mornings. He plans to add Wednesday evening services later. Dennis’ wife of 42 years, Angie Dennis, will lead a new member class and a women’s ministry.
Brandon Diehl will serve as campus pastor, handling the daily operations of the church, with assistance from his wife, Charity Diehl. Ferreira will oversee the finances and administration, and his wife, Julee, will lead the volunteer ministry.
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The church is nondenominational, though Dennis said the doctrine will be the same that he followed while leading Church at the Mall, which was affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention.
“The reason that we have chosen not to go with a denomination is we don’t want anything to be a barrier to people coming to the church,” Dennis said.
He said it will be a “simple” church.
“Simple, by way of organization,” he said. “Simple by us focusing on what is our main objective. As a younger pastor, I had the world on my heart. I wanted to reach the world. I still want to reach the world, but now I’m 62 and I want to reach Lakeland. That’s my heart now. I want to reach the city that I love.”
Dennis said he has no desire to draw Christians away from churches they now attend, including members at the former Church at the Mall, one of the largest in Polk County, which rebranded in 2019 as Lakes Church.
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“We are a church that’s focusing on the unchurched and the de-churched,” Dennis said. “The de-churched means those who are disenfranchised from their church, those who feel like they don’t have a church home anymore. Those are the people that we are just enthusiastically reaching out to.”
The sanctuary has the capacity for about 900. Dennis said church leaders are working to remodel the interior of the building and install modern sound and lighting systems.
Dennis established himself as a nationally prominent minister while leading the Church at the Mall, a Southern Baptist church occupying a former retail center on 32 acres along Memorial Boulevard. Starting as pastor in 1996, Dennis led the church’s growth to nearly 10,000 members.
Dennis retired in 2017 after a series of health problems. He has had 11 operations on his back and said he will always have pain but otherwise feels healthy.
“But the beauty of what I’m doing now is I do not have the responsibility of the day-to-day operations of the church,” he said. “The preaching was never the burden for me; that was the joy. It was all of the other things that went along with pastoring a church of that size.”
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Dennis will remain involved with Wingman Nation, a men’s ministry that Ferreira founded at Church at the Mall. The organization supports church- and community-based Bible study and bonding sessions for men as well as a Wives of Wingmen gathering. Dennis said others handle the administrative part of the ministry.
City Central Church has “strategic partnerships” with Florida Baptist Children’s Homes and its affiliate, One More Child, along with A Woman’s Choice, a pregnancy care center, and the Dream Center of Lakeland. Dennis said that will mean promoting the organizations and providing volunteers and financial support.
The Arkansas native has served as president of the Florida Baptist Convention and on boards of the Southern Baptist Convention, the worldwide denomination. Dennis emphasized that his decision to lead a nondenominational church does not reflect disaffection with the denomination.
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“This is not in any way a negative toward the SBC,” he said. “Not at all. It’s just that at this season of my life, I don’t want anything to hinder us reaching people.”
Dennis, a grandparent of three, said he is excited at the prospect of being back in a pulpit.
“I don’t know that I’ve ever been in a season where I felt more joy than I do right now,” he said.
Gary White can be reached at gary.white@theledger.com or 863-802-7518. Follow on Twitter @garywhite13.
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