ZHOP

It’s 7pm on Monday evening. I am sitting here in Zadok House of Prayer enjoying a worship set led by my friend Dave Carey. It’s pretty cool seeing him do it here just like at IHOP-Michiana. Robert is even getting to play percussion for the team. I think I see Ryan Singleton drumming! We got the grand tour earlier today. Zadok is house in this half office / half warehouse building surrounded by other similar buildings. Zadok is located next to Morningstar Ministries, which is housed at the former Heritage USA (Jim & Tammy Bakker).

I took a long walk this morning around the the old Heritage property. Originally over 2000 acres, the property was left to decay in the late 80s after Jim was sent to prison. After a series of unsuccessful attempts for using the property, it sat empty until a Christian developer purchased it. He sold part of it to Morningstar. This included a 500 room hotel, conference center, shops, an unfinished 21-story tower, cabins and a bizarre looking castle building. The complex once held the largest waterpark in the USA, as well as condos, a massive TV studio, outdoor amphitheatre, and campgrounds. Today, Morningstar has restored the hotel and shops, but the tower remains unfinished. It’s wild to be driving and suddenly see this tower looming above the middle hundreds of brand new homes. We walked around in the woods and discovered all these abandoned bath houses. They were vandalized and decaying, but at one point were pretty nice – stone and glass. I have to say, when the place was in it’s heyday, it must have been awesome. There was a train that ran all around the property. In the 80s, it was the third most visited place in the USA – just under Disney! It was sad to walk along and see the rusted fences and crooked light poles and empty train depots and imagine what it must have been like. But it is also amazing to see the tremendous rebirth and renovation that has occurred. Photos to come.