Beltway Park North will open March 29, and the college worship service, 6:33, will take place at the north campus March 25.

“This campus will be much easier for students at all three universities to get to, and we hope that its location will also be a blessing for families who live on the north side,” said Brance Armstrong, senior multimedia major from Odessa and audio/visual technician at Beltway.

The campus was originally set to open in January but was pushed back due to several factors.

With any construction project, there will always be limiting variables, such as equipment that is or isn’t ready, weather or other manufacturing issues, said Keith Roberson, north campus pastor.

“The majority of the delay was due to delays from the manufacturing and delivery of steel for the building,” he said.

Roberson said they have put two and half years into this project since God gave them the dream to reach northern Abilene and is excited about the opportunity to reach northern Abilene, including outlying communities such as Albany and Clyde.

Mark Jackson, associate director of student organizations and programs, has been a member of Beltway Park since 2001 is on the core launch team of the north campus.

He and his wife, along with around 400 individuals, are making the switch from the south campus to the north campus.

“A lot of big-city churches have done this before, but for an Abilene church to have two church buildings is rather unique,” Jackson said.

The message will be streamed online and shown as a video to north campus attendees. Everything else in the service will be live.

“There are a lot of moving parts to doing a video campus,” Roberson said. “You’re always at the mercy of some of the those tech elements that you can’t control.”

Roberson said he is fully confident in the team and the process they have selected to show the streamed message, though.

While he will not deliver the message at the north campus, his responsibility as the north campus pastor is to be a sheppard for the people there.

“My primary role is to be a source of life and encouragement for the people here, to help manage and run the staff and our team and to make sure we have incredibly excellent life-giving ministries here,” Roberson said.

Beltway recognizes that sometimes individuals can be reserved about going to a church, and their full-time, full-service coffee shop is a part of their vision to make connections and stir conversation.

“People have the opportunity to come into this building and for it to become a home,” Roberson said. “They may not even go to church here, but they have a home here. The building includes an indoor playground so that families can come.”

Beltway’s goal is to create a home for people, but they do not want to take people from where they’re already connected.

“If you’re already connected, stay there and grow,” Jackson said.

But for those still searching for a church home, Beltway could be worth visiting.

“We’d love to be a source of encouragement and life for college students; a place where they can come kick their feet up, drink coffee and know that we care about them and we’re here for them,” Roberson said.