HONOLULU -- Calvary Chapel of Honolulu took its biggest leap of faith last Sunday.

According to Pacific Business News, construction crews broke ground on a $10.5 million project to create a four-building campus on six acres of land.

When construction is completed in about a year, Calvary Chapel will have a new sanctuary, a modern bookstore and cafe, a kindergarten-to-eighth-grade school and a gymnasium.

"We are going to go from 8,000 square feet to more than a quarter of a million square feet," said Bill Stonebraker, pastor of the chapel that currently serves approximately 1,500 families.

The church literally has run out of room.

"We are bursting at the seams," said assistant pastor Russell Takaezu. "The classrooms are jam-packed with children and the sanctuary is maxed out. Hopefully this will ease that a bit; we have quite a bit more space to grow into."

Calvary Chapel bought the property for $800,000 cash in 2000 from the Lutheran Church, which at one time had similarly grand plans for the property, Takaezu said.

"They really had a vision for a church-school but they weren't able to get it up and moving," he said. "With the dying of their vision, it gave birth to a new vision, someone to carry on the church-school campus."

In its school, the church expects to have approximately 100 students the first year and 250 within two years, Stonebraker said. Tuition will range from $300 to $500 per month.

The church will finance the project with $2.5 million cash its membership raised and $8 million borrowed from City Bank, Stonebraker said.

While the chapel will rely on donations from its members to make its mortgage payments, it downplays fund raising, Stonebraker said.

"We've got a totally different approach: When God guides, God provides," he said. "We really try to minimize pounding people for money. We try to paint the vision and show them what we want to do. We are stepping out on faith and trusting God for it, but at same time, we don't want to get into a financial bind. It's the biggest step of faith we have taken as a church."