LOS ANGELES – More than 2,000 members of the City of Refuge Church traveled in a motorcade through the streets of South Los Angeles on their way to a new building. The growing congregation has moved five times, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Most recently the church left its 1,200-seat sanctuary for a 118,000-square-foot warehouse.

The Pentecostal church has an active membership of almost 10,000, according to Bishop Noel Jones, the pastor. So the traditional march to the new building was changed to a motorcade to accommodate so many people and nearly seven miles separating the old location from the new.

About 500 carloads of churchgoers and at least one deacon astride a gleaming Harley Davidson honked and waved to passersby as they made their way across town with blue and white balloons decorating their vehicles.

The church, formerly known as the Greater Bethany Community Church, has moved five times since it was founded in 1939. Each time they moved it was to accommodate new members.

When Bishop Jones, the elder brother of singer Grace Jones, assumed the pastorate in 1994, the church had 3,300 members.

Since then more growth necessitated holding four services every Sunday. There was no place to build.

Jones began to look for a place to house the growing church and settled on the warehouse. Donations from celebrity members, including actors Jada Pinkett Smith and Larenz Tate, comedian Chris Tucker and journalist Tavis Smiley, helped the church purchase and refurbish the $10 million warehouse.

The church reported Tucker donated $500,000, Pinkett Smith $300,000 and Smiley $300,000.

Los Angeles Mayor James K. Hahn and Los Angeles County Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke attended a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the new location and toured the campus that includes a 4,500-seat sanctuary.

Jones said unused space in the rear of the warehouse may provide for a future expansion. He is also looking at properties around the church for parking.

"I've learned," Jones said, "that it's harder to manage success than it is failure."