TORKELSON: Erie pastor launches his life's dream: Messiahville

By Jean Torkelson, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Monday, May 12, 2008

Photos By Brian Lehmann / Special To The Rocky

Del Moore, left, H.D. Cunningham, center, and Rex and Karen Bentley, right, bow their heads in prayer during Sunday's church service at Messiahville Baptist Church in Erie. Pastor Tommy Moore recently opened the church on 150 acres that eventually will include a biblical theme park.

Pastor Tommy Moore laughs before heading to the basement chapel to lead church services.

On Sunday morning, a benevolent tornado by the name of Pastor Tommy Moore swept across the fields near Erie. All in his wake took note.

It was Mother's Day, Pentecost and Pastor Tommy's 80th birthday - all wrapped into one day, a day bigger than life, just like Pastor Tommy himself.

"A wonderful, wonderful welcome to everyone!" Moore boomed, as if he were greeting 1,000 people. No matter that it was just a flock of 20 in the simple, Southwestern-style chapel. The eclectic crowd - men in suits, bikers in leather - soaked in the rays of the pastor's high-beam smile.

Del, his wife of 60 years, was there and, on piano, their daughter, Judy Keesler.

Sunday also marked the official launch of the Moore family's 150-plus acre, lifelong-dream project - Messiahville, a kids' biblical theme park, still in the making.

Upstairs from the new chapel is the family home, a log cabin packed with fun antiques, like vintage model cars and Moore's great-granddad's rope chair. Years ago, Moore invested in property when it was cheap. It enabled him to pay $1 million, cash, for the Erie property.

His life's theme: With God's help, never, ever give up. "Folks," he says, "no matter what you do in life, if you don't stick it out, you will lose it. Push ahead with faith in God or fall behind and be swept away."

Though entering his ninth decade, the kid from Broken Bow, Neb., figures he's got plenty of time to polish Messiahville.

"The greatest years of my life are going to be the next 10 years!" he crows.

Moore knows setbacks. He was in the news in 2006 when a heater caught fire in one of his Denver rental units and a child died. Though blameless, Moore was anguished. He's spent his life helping kids through his nonprofit, Save A Child Inc.

Later that year, he suffered a heart attack just days before Christmas.

Today, Moore is radiant - a slim, even elegant, figure in a gray suit and tie. He jokes that he has his own hair and teeth, though his hearing is gone.

"He just has got this aura about him," says William Thompson, an engineer from Dacono, who led Sunday's singing. (Not that Thompson ever thought he could sing, at least until he met Pastor Tommy.)

And the bikers? "It's a long story," grins Bob Dansby, a rakish, pirate figure in leather who's with Soldiers for Jesus.

Setbacks? In the mid-'70s, Moore fought a bitter eminent-domain battle with Lakewood over his former church property, which split the 1,000-member flock.

Asked about it, his blue eyes fill with hurt. But he didn't quit, did he?

"Baptists," he finally says, " are a scrappy people."

Now, make way for a new dream: a 5,000-seat church, someday, in Erie.

Always aim high, he tells his flock: "If you aim at the stars, you'll never shoot your toe off. So I always aim at the stars."

torkelsonj@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5055

• May 12, 2008

  8:01 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  kathyM writes:

  The ultimate in tacky. I think I'm going to be sick.