When New Beginnings Christian Fellowship needed $250,000 for unexpected costs to its new building, its congregation met that need in two days.

“I think that it says that people are committed to the project,” said church deacon Chuck Smith. “It’s for our foundation…in the teachings of Jesus Christ.”

Once a gym, the remodeled building is the church’s first permanent home. The remodel project is about half complete, but the building is ready for Sunday worship services.

Meeting in Renton high schools for about four years, the relatively new church boasts 1,300 members with about 900 people showing up to Sunday services.

“Starting out with having nothing, we feel like we’ve come a long way in a short period of time,” Smith said.

Reverend Leslie Braxton wasn’t surprised by the growth.

“A fisherman should never be surprised if he goes to catch fish where the fish are,” he said. “I expect to grow even faster.”

The first Sunday in the new building was packed, with about 2,000 people in all, he said.

The new worship center makes up the bulk of the remodel, boasting a large stage for dancers, who regularly perform at the predominately black church.

However Braxton “strictly refuses” to be defined as a black-only church, intentionally hiring an ethnically diverse team and centering his church around principles of new beginnings and the Gospel, he said.

Though political messages about social justice and civil rights still flow from his pulpit, he said.

He took a leadership role in a major Seattle civil rights march on Interstate-5 in 2001.

Braxton started the church after resigning from Seattle’s Mount Zion Baptist Church, Seattle’s largest black congregation, during a controversy over the church’s vision.

New Beginnings is a fitting name, not just for the message of the Gospel, but for Braxton himself.

“This church is more about community service than internal obsession,” he said.

About a year after meeting at Renton High School, the congregation moved to Lindbergh High school and took a lease on a church building for daily operations.

When Braxton came to work in the morning, he’d step over homeless sleeping in front, most of whom were white.

So the predominately black church members, many well educated, decided to start serving dinner to homeless whites.

“That was an extremely healing moment,” Braxton said. “That doesn’t happen very often in the American society.”

The largest benefit of having their own building is being able to increase mid-week ministry.

When the youth center is complete, the church is planning on an after school program in January 2010 that will provide tutoring and extracurricular classes to “latch-key” kids, Braxton said.

“One of the things we want to be is a stable place,” he said. “It becomes a cornerstone of their nurturing.”

The youth area includes a large room with a stage, so teens can have their own worship services.

“The youth room is going to grow our ministry,” said Renton’s 15-year-old Jordon Bolden, who leads the youth choir. “When we start having our own services in our youth area, we’re going to grow spiritually as well.”

In addition to education, Braxton hopes to teach kids how to be courteous and polite.

“The hip-hop culture has destroyed that,” he said. “It has made being mean fashionable.”

The sprawling foyer, or narthex, is complete with an information desk, coffee stand and bookstore, and connects with the worship center and cry room.

“It’s intended to have a mall feel,” Braxton said.

The Worship center is the crown jewel, with about 900 seats and a glowing cross popping out of a maroon backdrop.

The church likes to take traditional sounds and symbols and give it a remix.

“Music has always been important,” he said. “When you start talking about people of color, it just ups the ante.”

Full of unopened gym equipment and weight sets, a remodel of the second half of the building won’t start until the fall. It will include classrooms and a gym.

A shuttle takes churchgoers from three offsite parking locations, as the church plans to pave about 2 acres of land into a parking lot.

“For a church of four years, to do that much and have that big of a response, is kind of amazing,” Bolden said. “It’s the proven fact that when you have faith in something you believe in great things can come with it.”