Megachurch Buys $20.5 Million Shopping Center, Plans to Use Profits to Serve the Poor
Transformation Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma, which was in the news last year for buying a huge event center for 10 million dollars, has now reportedly bought the entire retail center surrounding it for 20.5 million dollars.
The hope is to use the funds from the retail center’s profits to help the poor and do other philanthropic work. The retail center, called Post Rock Plaza, has 34 businesses in it and could be a serious source of revenue for the church.
“This has been an unbelievable journey for us,” Pastor Michael Todd, head pastor of Transformation Church, told Oklahoma’s News On 6.
“There’s over 34 businesses that function out of this area, and we get the opportunity to have great relationships with them and see the future grow in this community. We wanted this to be an investment for the long term of our church, that we could be able to get revenue to bless our community.”
One of the businesses, Oklahoma Hand and Physical Therapy, was quite happy about the purchase. Business owner Rhonda Millet told News On 6 that, while the new owners will have no bearing on her day-to-day business dealings, she is happy the church bought the plaza. “They’re going to do a lot of goodwill and the things we supply through paying our rent, I’m excited to see what they do,” Millet told the news station.
According to The Christian Post, even though the church has been so financially successful and has big plans for giving back to the community, they have run into some trouble with the local officials. Reportedly, the church has been given 32 noise citations and local authorities have threatened to shut them down. The event center apparently leaks a great deal of sound that the neighbors do not like.
However, the church’s social media director, Chris Harvey, states that is not their intention. Instead, “We see people from our city and all around the world being able to come to this space and feel like they’re at home, it’s just special,” he said in a statement.
Photo courtesy: Alexander Kovacs/Unsplash
John Paluska has been a contributor for Christian Headlines since 2016 and is the founder of The Daily Fodder, a news outlet he relaunched in 2019 as a response to the constant distribution of fake news.
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