“It was so close I could taste it,” he says. “I could just see it.”

You could say that dream began more than 60 years ago, the moment his father, Bryant Robinson Sr., left Alabama for a place where his children could drink from fountains of their choice. As soon as he arrived in Springfield he wanted to flee, so foreign was the place. But his train ticket, courtesy of a local pastor, was one way, so he settled in this community known as the City of Homes and sent for his family.

Though working as a parking attendant and then as an assembly-line worker, he found his true calling in the Church of God in Christ. Eventually the church’s revered leader, C. H. Mason, resolved tension within the Springfield flock by directing the elder Robinson to start his own congregation, one that would be called the Macedonia Church of God.

For a while the congregation shared a storefront with another church, until it raised enough money to buy a former synagogue that featured rooms used for transitional housing. “Housing for people coming from the South,” Bishop Robinson recalls. “Escaping segregation.”

Finally, in 1961, the elder Robinson, now working as a stain spotter at a dry cleaners, persuaded his congregation to buy an old Episcopalian church that sat on a small corner lot on King Street.

For decades he juggled the dual tasks of cleaning clothes and saving souls. He immersed believers in the baptismal pool, presided over their weddings, talked Bible to them on Sundays, led others in prayer after they had gone. Years of footsteps formed grooves in the red stone steps leading to the church’s wooden door.

The elder Robinson died in 2001 at age 86. Bryant Robinson Jr., his co-pastor and the oldest of his five children, took over the congregation, switching gears after more than 30 years as a civic leader and educator; at one time he had served as the city’s interim superintendent of schools.

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Bishop Robinson soon decided the church on King Street, now more than a century old, could no longer meet the congregation’s needs. Parking was minimal, the maroon carpet old, the windows small and high; Oh Lord, could it get hot in those pews on a late summer Sunday.

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We deserve a church meant for us, built by us, he told his congregants, and they agreed. The weekly tithing and special offerings took on added urgency, as the bishop reminded people that when you invest in Kingdom’s church, you cannot lose.

The church eventually bought four wooded acres on Tinkham Road, about five miles away, from Andrew Robinson, both a brother of the bishop and the congregation’s music director. (“We got a favorable rate,” the bishop says, smiling.) Where others saw tall pine trees and sandy soil, he envisioned a soaring church with plenty of parking.

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As time passed, enthusiasm flagged; the project sometimes seemed to be nothing more than an architectural sketch hanging in the back of the old church. As it changed in scope and required the purchase of more land, Bishop Robinson tried to re-ignite interest and to convey his commitment by announcing that he had long ago stopped drawing a salary.

The response, he says, was “marginal.”

Still, the project inched forward, thanks in part to the guidance of the church’s lawyer, Bradford Martin Jr. He helped to secure a $1.9 million construction loan, and worked to allay the concerns of neighbors opposed to having a church in their backyard.

Finally, in April 2007, dignitaries and elders joined Bishop Robinson in breaking ground with shovels painted gold. “I was so elated that day,” he says. “At one point I said we may be standing in the sanctuary. And you know where we were? In the parking lot.”

After a while, though, parishioners who previously visited the site to mutter “This is too small” and “That’s not right” would gaze upon the 18,000-square-foot structure and say only, “Wow.”

“That became the descriptive word,” the bishop says. “Wow.”

Hardly a day would pass without a visit from the bishop. He would sit in his car, watch the workers — and visualize.

You would enter a foyer large enough for people to chat with one another after services. To the right, a men’s room; to the left, a spacious ladies’ lounge with large mirrors, because he remembered his father’s fear of the sermon he would have to give if women stopped attending: “Finally, brothers, farewell.”

A large meeting hall in the back, suitable for weddings and church gatherings. A row of prayer rooms to the right. A pastor’s office in the left corner. A food prep room. A chandelier one day, but not now. And, of course, the 500-seat sanctuary, designed to be intimate, with video equipment to project the full-immersion baptisms on a screen for all to see.

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Oh, and plenty of parking for a congregation sure to grow.

By Election Day, 75 percent of the construction was finished, with the entire exterior nearly done and construction workers planning to lay the water line in the morning. The bishop could taste it. He watched the election returns, felt pride in his country and turned out the light. And during his short sleep, someone set fire to his dream.

Investigators say the cause was arson, but so far they have no suspects or evidence that the crime was rooted in racism. Still, the bishop cannot shake the timing of it — timing that will now forever link two events, one of joy and pride, another of loss and horror.

As Election Night melted away, as memories of the past tempered thoughts of the future, the bishop sat in that chair, thinking, praying. Behind him were stacked five gold-painted shovels from the groundbreaking; in front of him, the fire; above him, the mysterious pitch of the night. And the thought came to him: Build again.