Each week on Making a Difference, our host Mike White talks to people who are helping the community. Today, Mike talks to Derrick Richardson from Glorious Bethlehem Temple. Glorious Bethlehem Temple is a family-oriented church with a heart to serve the community. Today Derrick comes in and tells what GBT has been up to in the community. 

Each week on Making a Difference, our host Brittany Shaw talks to community leaders from around Jacksonville. This week, Brittany is joined by Derrick & Donald Richardson from Glorious Bethlehem Temple.

After a seven-year legal battle with the Florida Department of Transportation, a Jacksonville church celebrated its first service in its new building on Friday.

Glorious Bethlehem Temple on Wister Street was in the path of the Overland Bridge Projectthat's making its way over Interstate 95 from South Metro through San Marco. The pastor didn't think the state's offer for the church property was fair to his congregation, so he fought back.

It’s the resolution to a classic David versus Goliath battle on Jacksonville’s Southbank. A few years ago the Florida Department of Transportation began the I-95 Overland Bridge Project. At that time, FDOT bought up several properties to do the highway work, but a small church on Wister Street held out.

When the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) began the I-95 Overland Bridge Project, it bought several properties except for a small church on Wister Street.

Glorious Bethlehem Temple had been in its Southside location for nearly six decades. Though small, it was a fabric of the community.

"We did not have any kind of financial debt," said Pastor Donald Richardson.

The widening of Interstate 95 on Jacksonville’s Southside has come with the usual growing pains of progress: traffic congestion, lane closures and noise. The project has put one church congregation between the road and a hard place — and into a legal battle with the state.

Demolition to widen Interstate 95 on Jacksonville’s Southside is feeding a court battle between the state and a hard-pressed church congregation — over what’s not being torn down.

The purpose is to improve traffic flow along the Interstate 95 corridor just south of the Fuller Warren Bridge. The Florida Department of Transportation is widening I-95 but to do so the department had to buy surrounding properties.

One of those properties is a church -- and now that church is suing because officials feel the FDOT isn't giving them what they deserve.

A small church in Florida spent more than $50,000 to buy a piece of land it didn’t need because of an eminent domain threat from the state.