Posted on 04/04/2015 6:21:51 AM PDT by Kaslin
Easter Sunday is sort of like the Super Bowl for preachers.
It’s all but guaranteed the pews will be packed and that presented a challenge to Roderick Richardson, the pastor of The Word Center Church in Jackson, Miss.
The non-denominational church has a membership of about 1,200 people – but only 275 can fit in the sanctuary. And the preacher estimated they could have as many as 1,500 people show up for Easter Sunday. http://www.thewordcity.com/
So last January Pastor Richardson started scouting out a new location for his growing church. And it wasn’t long before he found a solution – a conference center run by the University of Mississippi Medical Center.
He signed a contract to rent the space on Jan. 27. On March 27 – the university abruptly canceled the contract and told the church they would not be allowed to use their facility.
“It was a week and two days before the largest service of the year,” Pastor Richardson told me. “They told me the climate at UMMC was not conducive for us to have a service at the facility.”
The climate was not conducive?
“They were afraid IHL might come and say something about a church having a service (in their facility),” the pastor said. IHL is also known as the State Institutions of Higher Learning, the agency that oversees Mississippi’s eight public institutions of higher learning.
“We’re not angry at them because we are Christians,” the pastor said. “We’re just a little frustrated that this particular institution did not keep its word.”
Marc Rolph, a spokesman for UMMC, confirmed they canceled the church’s contract – a week and two days before Easter Sunday.
“It was unfortunate that the timing of the cancellation was so close to (the) date of the event,” Rolph told me.
He denied it had anything to do with the church being a church. He said the booking should never have been made in the first place because they only allow their facilities to be used by health-related organizations.
“The event is not health related and thus is not compliant with our policy,” Rolph said.
He said they didn’t realize the church was a church until last week when the director of the facility ran it up the flag pole.
“It was deemed not within the guidelines of our policy and could not be allowed. The church was immediately notified,” Rolph said.
UMMC offered to let the church hold their service inside a medical mall instead. The church declined that offer. I mean – who wants to hold a church service in a mall?
Pastor Richardson said UMMC’s excuse doesn’t make any sense.
“If that was a policy we should have been told back in January when we signed the contract,” he said. “We’ve been preparing for this for two and a half months.”
And it’s not like the church was hiding the fact it was a church.
“On the very first page of the contract it asked for the type of event and it says ‘church service’,” the pastor told me.
Pastor Richardson told me he feels like David battling Goliath.
“They are so large and so powerful they can do us however they want,” he said. “They simply did not conduct business in an adequate fashion.”
The church has been forced to hold services in their small sanctuary. The pastor said they will accommodate the crowds by holding multiple services throughout the day.
The Word Center Church signed a contract in good faith with UMMC. It wasn’t their fault the UMMC made a mistake. So why not honor the contract and allow these good people to hold their Easter service?
“We have to follow our policies,” Rolph said.
There’s a strong argument to make that the church does meet the UMMC’s guidelines of being a health-related organization.
A quick reading of the New Testament indicates our Lord was in the healing business. There are documented reports of giving sight to the blind, healing a leper and even raising someone from the dead.
I’m not too sure the Great Physician would be all that thrilled with the University of Mississippi Medical Center.
Of course it is a HEALING service!!!
All in the spirit of diversity and tolerance, of course.
There is a non-Christian in the chain of command. When my son was beginning his first semester at Chapel Hill, his heathen roommate was watching porn all the time which disturbed my pure Christian son to the point that he complained and then the punishment began. The girl in charge of the dorm was about as anti-Christian as it gets. I flew back there and had a meeting with the head of housing who was even worse. I was so angry at his anti-Christian B.S. partially because he so insulted my son to the point of tears that I immediately hired a lawyer and started the process to sue the University. Ultimately, they backed off a little, so we never went to court, but these anti-Christian types are everywhere...maybe it will have come to civil war...I am ready to fight these bastards to the end if need be!!!
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Pastor needs to get a court order which says that the school has to give him a key and allow him access. That’s not non-Christian. If UMMC is breaking a contract, they need to know that there are consequences. Or they can hold their service in the parking lot if the weather is nice. Rent a generator if necessary and then send the school the bill.
It would be wonderful if the church had an investigative service that could check every group that has rented that conference center to confirm they were all “medical”
then let the lawsuit pay for an expansion of the church
Now turn it around. Try and rent a large venue in January, and 2 weeks before their busiest day of the year try to cancel because, oops, we made a mistake in policy.
Then try and get out of paying the contracted price....
Hear, hear.
Good idea.
How could they possibly not understand that something called “The Word Center Church” was a church?
Why didn’t the pastor simply make a call to the Governor of the state, his state representative or senator, and the president of the university? One of these officials would likely have intervened to fix the problem. If not, have a lawyer call and demand the contract be fulfilled. If that fails, create a public relations firestorm.
I suspect this is all about an atheist bureaucrat in the chain of command trying to assert her/his authority. Many times I’ve found when dealing with a bureaucracy, a phone call to the top person will cut through the red tape and result in a positive resolution. It has gotten to the point that when dealing with any organization (business, government, non-profit, etc) as soon as I run into a brick wall, or feel like I’m getting the runaround, I make a call to the CEO’s office. i usually don’t get to speak to the CEO, but I always get someone who will deal with the situation and give me an answer on the spot or within a few hours.
If a call to the head isn’t working, and the pastor has a valid contract to rent the facility, a lawyer should be able to make a few calls and get things back on track. An attorney calls the head of the legal office of the university. He tells them his client has a valid contract. Either cancel the contract in writing with justification based on the letter of the contract or honor the contract. If you cancel the contract, we are suing and will create the biggest public relations firestorm we can.
It is hard for me to believe in Mississippi, of all states the state officials won’t intervene and tell the University officials to rent the facility and get over their personal issues with religion.
I am not sure if I get you. Jesus was not an MD with a medical degree. He performed miracles, healing was one of them and traveled from place to place with his disciples
If only it was a gay church...
Why does diversity and tolerance always mean the Christians have to go? And how could the administration at the university NOT know what was going on on their campus? They are lying.
Would the use of the conference center have been canceled if a Muslim group were using it?
““We have to follow our policies,” Rolph said.”
Apparently policy is more important to commitment. A church service is healing to many in many ways. I can believe this could happen many places but I’m surprised for it to occur here in Mississippi. The least the university should have done is acknowledge they made a policy error BUT HONOR THEIR COMMITMENT. Is haley barbour behind this?
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