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The Idlewild Baptist Central Campus Illegal Tire Dump and Mosquito Farm for Christ

Discarded tires adorn Idlewild Baptist’s Central Campus

Idlewild Baptist Church is described in today’s SP Times as “one of the state’s largest.” It has 9,000 members, is very politically connected and active in getting its members elected to public office. At least 2 members serve on the Hillsborough County Commission.

Idlewild is building a new $73 million arena church, because, as anyone who knows Jesus’ teachings can attest, Christianity is all about ostentatious displays of excess wealth.

Drive down a shady neighborhood street just off N Dale Mabry Highway in northwest Hillsborough and suddenly, one of the biggest churches in a state of big churches looms ahead. Yet the future Idlewild Baptist church is screened from the nearest road by cypress swamps. So far, only construction workers, neighbors and church members have seen it.

That will change in September, when the 9,000-member church moves to its new campus. The main entrance road, mile-long Exciting Idlewild Boulevard, will become a public road. People will be able to drive right up to the $73-million church and campus, all 143 acres of it.

How big is the church building itself? Air Force One, the president's jet, would fit comfortably inside the 5,152-seat sanctuary, though the tail would jut among the ceiling beams.

In the past two months, 1,100 members have taken tours of the new church. It's intended for more than just exciting the faithful.

"One of the motives for the tour is to get our people familiar with the building so it's not strange on the first Sunday," said Ken Smith, Idlewild's minister through administration.

Without help, you could get seriously lost. The new church has a pair of two-story classroom wings with warrens of rooms, plus a two-story office section for Idlewild's 66 full-time staff members.

In the midst of such scale, the new church will have features that most pastors could only dream about. The children's wing will have a room exclusively for nursing mothers. The youth wing will feature its own auditorium, plus a game room with foosball, pingpong and a snack bar.

The 35,000-square-foot "Gatheria," with 25-foot freeze-dried palms, will be much more than a grand lobby. It will boast top-notch acoustics, and the roof of its centerpiece bookstore will function as a stage. Rigging above the arched windows will hold backdrops for productions.

The Gatheria will accommodate as many as 400 diners for Wednesday night supper, and as many as 800 for banquets, said Norman Childers, one of 35 volunteer tour guides.

I’m fairly familiar with Idlewild. BlogWood’s $73.84 Worldwide Headquarters Campus and Recreation Area in Tampa Heights abuts an Idlewild church property which they quaintly refer to as their Central Campus.

Our neighborhood would be described by a realtor as transitional. Some streets feature well maintained owner occupied bungalow style houses, while many streets remain populated by residents of flop houses and other blighted rental property. This neighborhood has a pretty good racial mix, but as the transition progresses, the mix is becoming lighter and lighter.

Still, if you asked a casual observer, most would probably say that the neighborhood is predominantly black and poor.

Perhaps tellingly, Idlewild has seen fit to, uh, segregate its Central Campus from the big house church. The Central Campus has its own, separate (but equal?) web site, and, coincidentally, the only pastor on the Idlewild staff who is of African American descent.

Seeing as the Central Campus is just south of the original Idlewild Church in Seminole Heights, it would seem that Idlewild is abandoning its roots, but I’m certainly not one to point out the hypocrisy of a Christian organization. Oh, wait...

Anyway, even as this mega-church is works to complete its opulent new monument to greed and excess uh, Christ, yeah, that’s the ticket... they’re honoring Christ, they are ignoring pressing needs at that separate place where they let brown people worship - The Central Campus.

I’m not even going to mention the fact that they hire off-duty deputies to keep the poor and homeless out of their faces whenever more than 2 or three of them gather, because I fully understand the need for people to worship without being bothered with all that messy alms stuff or having to actually gaze upon people in need.

See, through a series of non-occurrences which can only be attributed to a combination of excessive consumption and sheer laziness, I just happen not to have any pictures of those deputies. I am, however, in possession of a series of photos which depict the Idlewild Baptist Central Campus Illegal Tire Dump and Mosquito Farm for Christ which has been located right next door to me ever since I moved in.

When I first moved in, I called Idlewild and asked them to clean it up. They promptly ignored me. Well, they didn’t completely ignore me - they hired a lawn maintenance crew who consolidated and moved the pile of tires to its current location.

I’ve complained several times to the city about it, to no avail. You can view my most recent complaint here. The city has been coming down hard on code violators. I was tagged twice in the last few months for minor eyesores that were not posing a danger to anyone, but I can’t get the city to get Idlewild to remove a nasty old pile of tires and an old gas tank and other debris.

However, despite what many people might think, I’m sure that Idlewild’s strong ties to local politicians have absolutely no connection to their flaunting and intentional disregard for the well being of their Central Campus neighbors.

Now, before I start sounding too harsh about this, I do want to give Idlewild credit for having installed what amounts to the nicest playground for many blocks in any direction. Children and cats share the tire pile regularly and both have a grand old time gallivanting amongst the debris.

So I guess they have done something for this neighborhood. Oh, and the stinky, sticky discarded mattress which used to sit a few yards from the tires is now gone. We’ll give them credit for that, though the neighborhood kids do miss their trampoline.