Around 7 a.m. on Sunday, lines begin to form in Dallas' Design District for worship in an industrial warehouse-style building. By 9 a.m., hundreds of people had gathered.
An hour later, as Upper Room service began, about 600 people crammed into the Manufacturing Street space.
“You really have to come to the Upper Room to get in,” said Michael Miller, senior pastor and founder of the Christian-based, nondenominational church.
Founded in 2010, the church will soon call a more spacious 2.5-acre building in the Cedars neighborhood of downtown Dallas its new home. The space on Wall Street will more than double the church's capacity to nearly 1,600 people when completed in May.
The church began as a small prayer group in a room above a veterinary clinic in Oak Lawn. As it grew, the name remained as a reference to the original space and the place where the Bible says the Last Supper took place.
Now, with its growing membership, church leaders realized they needed an architect who was skilled in designing spaces for large crowds.
They turned to Brian Truby, who led the design team at Dallas-based HKS for decades and worked on such notable sports facilities as AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Globe Life Field, and SoFi Stadium outside Los Angeles.
“When you're working on a space that's basically a constructed environment, it's very similar from a functional standpoint,” said Truby, who now works for architecture firm Overland Partners. “Cheering for a team and worshiping God are different in some ways, but they share similar characteristics.”
Regarding the new space in the Upper Room, worship leaders said they didn't want to be spectators. They wanted to participate in the activities.
“So you feel like you're surrounded by worshipers,” Truby said.
The interior is dominated by circular shapes, symbolizing the original church described in the Bible. The main prayer room has a circular stage, illuminated by large ceiling lights and surrounded by pews on the same level.
Upper Room has invested about $21 million in the building, executive pastor Peter Slover said. The church is raising $6 million in 60 days to finish the job. A Gofundme page shows he has raised $1.26 million so far.
On a typical weekend, Upper Room services draw between 1,600 and 1,800 people. Miller said Upper Room's main demographics are Gen Z and Millennials, as younger generations are leaving the church.
Their online presence is extensive, with an Instagram account of around 360,000 followers. He has around 1.9 million listeners on his Spotify profile.
Jonathan Lewis, the church's prayer and worship leader, said he thinks the Upper Room is unique.
“I call it wild, but not weird,” he said. “There's a kind of freedom. It's a beautiful expression from earth to heaven.”
The church hosts worship and prayer sessions called “Corporate Sets” on weekdays at 6 a.m., noon and 6 p.m., and three services on weekends. His Upper Room YouTube channel shows about 180 volunteers each week leading songs, prayers, and dances.
Lewis said he hopes the church, located in the Cedars, can bridge the “unspoken gap” between Dallas' economically disparate north and south sides.
(Alison Slomowitz/Special Contributor)
Miller said that while many churches are moving to the suburbs, Upper Room felt “called to the downtown area.”
“There will be close to 90 hours of collective prayer.” [a week]'' Miller said. “I think that alone is a great service to the downtown South Dallas community. I think prayer changes people.”
The new Upper Room campus could be a catalyst for change, he said.
“We want to build a beachhead and say this area, this land, can be changed,” Miller said. “We think of it as almost an anchor point for future generations.”
