A Bridge to the Community?

Mega-church North Point Community Church in  Georgia, USA wants to build a $5 million bridge to ease parking congestion.

$5 Million Bridge to Somewhere: Tie it to the Purpose

Let's Build a Bridge

Church building campaigns can be hard for congregations to swallow. But how about building a $5 million bridge to ease parking congestion for a church?

That's what North Point Community Church outside Atlanta, Ga., is doing with their Let's Build a Bridge campaign. When I first saw it I literally thought it was a joke. As the opening copy explained:

Are you tired of sitting in the parking lot for twenty minutes after church? Do you hesitate to invite friends to church because of the complexity of getting on and off our campus? Have you ever skipped the closing song to beat the crowds to lunch?

Therefore North Point needs a $5 million, three-lane bridge that spans 1,000 feet of floodplain and wetlands. It's no joke. As North Point pastor Andy Stanley explains, this has been nine years in the making.

Church Marketing Sucks: $5 Million Bridge to Somewhere: Tie it to the Purpose

This raises lots of questions for me:

Is church attendance really the goal of what the church should be about?

What sort of disciples is the church producing if  skipping the last song for the sake of getting home early is a common practice?

What does this church imagine fellowship or community building is about?

Has the church as corporation overtaken the body as community?

How does any church position itself as a different form of organism if it just replicates what other human groups do?

This isn't a snipe at a particular big church in America. These are questions we have to face at every size of congregation- whether you have 20 people or 2,000 people the questions must be faced up to, particularly when a congregation is growing.

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