Jul 11 2008
Is this too much?
Grace Community Church is raising money to build two enormous crosses that its pastor says will mark the entrances to Houston on Interstate 45. The crosses will likely rank among the largest in the world.
Counting their bases, the crosses would reach up to 200 feet. Each would dwarf I-45’s current symbol of Texas largeness. “Big Sam” Houston, the colossal statue in Huntsville, stands 77 feet tall with its base.
The symbols of Christianity would tower over Grace’s freeway-hugging campuses: the south campus at Dixie Farm Road, and the new north campus just south of The Woodlands. Combined, they serve 12,000 members.
Part building, part sculpture, each cross would include a “prayer center” about 40 feet off the ground — a “Space Needle-type place,” Pastor Steve Riggle said — where Christians from all over Houston could come to pray for the city’s well-being.
An openwork globe 60 feet in diameter, with latitude and longitude lines crisscrossing the continents, would top the prayer center. The bottom of the cross would be visible through the globe.
Riggle sees the crosses as a symbolic stand against moral decay. “The freeways are littered with sexually oriented businesses,” he said. “I’d rather see something that stands for hope, life and faith.”
He hopes that other churches follow Grace’s lead. “What if there was one of these at every entrance to the city?” he asks on a YouTube video. “You talk about marking our city for God!”
“Marking Our City” billboards show a giant cross looming over the Houston skyline, and promise a 150-foot cross is “coming soon.” But the pastor hopes both structures will be 200 feet tall, roughly the height of a 20-story building. The Federal Aviation Administration, he said, may limit the south campus’s cross to 150 feet because it’s near Ellington Field.
The cross on Grace’s billboards bears a striking likeness to one often hailed as the world’s largest: the “Cross at the Crossroads” in Effingham, Ill. Completed in 2001, the white metal structure is 198 feet tall and measures 113 feet at its crossbar. It cost $1 million.
Read about it here.
[From me]
I’m curious if a large cross will bring the unchurched to church? Maybe. I would rather spend the money on the community or send it to missions.
What do you think?
7 responses so far
I wonder how many widows and orphans it will feed? Hmm… probably none but it’ll sure look pretty… It seems more like a “look at us” instead of “look at Jesus”!
Have a blessed weekend,
Sallie
All I can say is “why?” There are hurting and dying people all over Houston who could be better served by this money. This kind of wasting of God’s money makes me literally sick to my stomach. We will have to answer for our wastefulness one day.
Kevin,
The pastor seems sincere, at least from what the article reported. And, I am sure he is. I’ll all for pointing people to Jesus. But, I’m not sure the cross will accomplish that. It will probably point people to their church, not Jesus.
I once served in an area that had a church that held a yard sale in their parking lot every Saturday, from May until September. They rented out space and used the money on their building fund, I believe. You can’t believe how many calls our church received each week, asking this question: “Are you’ll the yard sale church?”
Don’t think lost people were being won by being the yard sale church and I don’t think lost people will be won by being “The church with the large cross.”
M. Steve Heartsill’s last blog post..Honey, How Was Work Today?
There’s an interesting podcast about the 190 foot tall cross in my mother’s hometown of Groom, Texas here: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=903
One of the things the story seems to suggest is that the cross in Groom has drawn people in who needed to pray or who were looking for something, but that most of them were already believers.
Texas in Africa’s last blog post..Where in the World is Texas in Africa Going?
wonder what Jesus Christ would think of this?
How did I not scroll down to see this article when I should have been working today and saw the Jacko picture instead?
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1) There is all ready way Way WAY too much traffic and Dixie Farm Road, I-45, and the Beltway. I don’t think it is very loving to put something up that will slow on lookers down more probably causing more wrecks. There is always a bottle neck in this area so it would be more annoying to most people.
2) This church does have an abundant amount of financial resources that the do use for the community. There building is used daily almost as a community center. They have seen people come to know Jesus through just getting them to them building. The follow through this church has on reaching people is tremondous. IF you attend an event (even scrapbooking or kid’s karate) there is a prayer time. Clearly, they do see a prayer cross as a real tool.
3) Coming for a cross seems like something that would be most suited for the Christians to want to see. If the presentation is done differently perhaps it can make people more focused on prayer for the city and each other. I just don’t know if my faith is able to believe that is what would really happen.
4) Perhaps there should be smaller crosses and they could create other strong churches on the east and west side of houston instead? This would make the most sense in my head.
I hate to quote Judas, but couldn’t this money be given to the poor?
Tom Bryant’s last blog post..Good News