JARED SOARES The Roanoke Times

Gordon Simmons, deacon at Garden of Prayer No. 7 Church in Roanoke County, places chairs in the sanctuary with help of other members from the congregation. After a series of renovations, the church will reopen today.

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Bishop Shadrack Brown has already seen every room in the $3 million expansion at Garden of Prayer No. 7 Church in Northwest Roanoke County, but he hopes to see the new sanctuary full for the first time at the grand opening celebration today.

"Our people shared a vision. This is the Lord's place," said the 78-year-old Brown, who founded the church at another location in 1970.

An independent Pentecostal church with a predominantly black congregation, Garden of Prayer has a membership of 450 and typical Sunday morning attendance of about 300. Yet the new octagon-shaped sanctuary has a seating capacity of 629. That's an exact number because there's individual theater-style seating.

The new worship center has slightly more than double the room of the old one, which will become a multipurpose facility. "We had people leaving on Easter because there was no room for them in the old building, even when we put chairs in the aisles," Brown said.

Preparations for the new sanctuary's first weekend came down to the wire. Just eight days ago, new plants in vases were temporarily stored in hallways and the choir room was crowded with boxes of robes and music equipment.

Garden of Prayer Church is a quasi-family institution. Brown's wife, Shirley, is executive administrator and an associate pastor. Two sons, Keith and Marcus Brown, are music ministers.

Shadrack Brown's title of bishop is related to a fellowship of six ministers at other independent churches in Virginia that he runs.

The numerical delineation of the church as No. 7 stems from the time when it was founded as the seventh Garden of Prayer Church location in Virginia under the umbrella of the Church of God and Christ denomination -- an affiliation that has been discontinued. Although some of the Gardens of Prayer, Nos. 1 to 6 no longer exist, Brown wants to continue the original name..

Still, he's adding an additional monicker to the church to signify its increasingly active outreach role: Vision of Faith Ministries Inc.

The new sanctuary is the culmination of planning that began in 1998. Along the way an old house on the church's 5-acre property had to be razed and a loan was obtained. Ground was broken in 2006.

Bishop Brown stood in the video production room of the sanctuary in late April and speculated that this expansion will be adequate for the Garden of Prayer for at least 30 years. He'd love to keep preaching for the duration. "I don't believe in retirement. I'm going to do this as long as I can," he said.

And he has another expansion dream for the church. "I'd like to see us build a gymnasium. I have handed that off to the young people," he said.