Saturday auction of First Family Church items has something for everyone
“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Matthew 6:19-21)
other famous book is up for grabs.” title=”Dorothy Gale from that other famous book is up for grabs.” width=”220″ height=”256″ />
One of the most famous fictional preachers in American literature, Elmer Gantry — that larger-than-life, narcissistic evangelist minister — was brought to life, at least partly, in Kansas City in 1926, as author Lewis Sinclair researched his novel here, attending local church services and interviewing many local preachers and ministers, including Robert Nelson Horatio Spencer, rector of the Grace and Holy Trinity Church, one of the largest congregations in town at that time.
One can only imagine what Sinclair Lewis would have made of a more recent preaching dynamo, the larger-than-life Rev. Jerry Johnston, pastor of the now-defunct megachurch, the First Family Church in Overland Park, and the recently disbanded New Day Church in Olathe. Before losing the First Family Church last year — the building went into foreclosure and the owner, Regions Bank, sold it last April — Johnston had a congregation that numbered 4,000 members as recently as 18 months ago.
A church with that many members requires a very big house of worship, and until this time last year, Johnston had one: a building that, from the highway, seems to appear as large as Ward Parkway Shopping Center.
