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Now I have been doing some figuring. Even this big new
addition, seating an additional 2,500 people, will probably be
outgrown after two years, and certainly by three. I began looking
into the future--the next ten or twelve years--and the outlook is
almost STARTLING! As we have been planning this Tabernacle, I find
it is possible that we could completely outgrow the whole structure
in FIVE MORE YEARS, after enlarging it to the very limit, where we
could go no farther!
I think you will be really interested in what I found, by
looking into future possibilities--so I am going to give you the
astonishing FACTS. We had planned this building so that, after
outgrowing the structure as we plan to enlarge it for next fall--
when it will be 121 feet deep as it is now, from pulpit to rear
and 376 feet wide (the long way)--we could then add the stem of a
"T" on the middle of the rear (121 feet wide, and extending about
100 or 150 feet farther on back from the platform), and then
finally we could put in a balcony. As nearly as we can figure now,
this could possibly seat as many as 14,000 or 15,000 people.
But when I began figuring attendance for the past 14
years, and the rate of increase, it began to appear that WE MIGHT
OUTGROW EVEN THAT IN THE NEXT FIVE YEARS!
I think you will be interested in the approximate
attendance figures. Starting with 1945, we were holding the
Festival at Belknap Springs in the Cascade mountains in Oregon. At
that time the broadcast was just starting to go national on an
every-night basis. All the members who attended, up to that time,
came from Oregon and Washington, where we had been on the air since
1934, and where I had been continually holding personal
evangelistic campaigns. But only a handful of people came for the
entire eight days of the Feast--about 40, with perhaps 20 or 30
additional on the weekly or annual Sabbaths.
In 1946, attendance was about 50, or a 25% increase.
Following are attendance figures and percentages of increase for
each year since:
1947 - attendance 65 -- 30% increase
1948 -
"
75 -- 15% "
1949 -
"
90 -- 20% "
1950 -
"
110 -- 22% "
1951 -
"
150 -- 36% "
By this time the Church in Pasadena was growing, and a few
brethren from the Middle West were attending. We had now
completely outgrown Belknap Springs. In 1952 the Festival was held
at Seigler Springs. in California. There was a 200% increase, with
450 in attendance--a large increase from the Middle West. God
showed us by many unusual circumstances that the PLACE for the
Festival, which HE chose to place His name there, was now the
present Tabernacle grounds where we had built a small Tabernacle
for the Passover Festival. It should be held in a warm climate or
the SOUTHERN part of the United States, and Gladewater is about
half way from coast to coast. That fall we began to enlarge the
original Tabernacle, and another big increase appeared in