Have you ever heard this or maybe even thought it? Especially if you are a business owner and you learn that a church is moving into that empty “Big Box” space in the shopping center just down from you.
I have firsthand experience of landlords, real estate brokers, property managers…and particularly tenants, who have had moments of panic and dismay at the prospects of a church becoming their immediate neighbor.
“The Shopping Center must be in financial trouble if they would allow a church to move in.”
“Those contemporary churches play such loud music…they will be a real distraction and disruption.”
“Traffic and parking is an issue already…this is just going to make it worse.”
“We can see it now…all those holy rollers will be putting out flyers and approaching all of clients, and we will lose their business.”
“This is not fair…they are going to use an unfair share of the CAM (common area maintenance).”
“They obviously are not a ‘real’ church if they don’t have their own building.”
I have heard all of the above…and yet I wonder if the above are the rule or the exception? Are these unfounded fears and myths? How do we know?
Well, earlier this year, Josh Blackson (Operations Pastor at Elevation Church) came to me with the idea of conducting a “blind survey” of local business that are in immediate or close proximity to the 2 Elevation Church campuses. He wanted to see how the occupancy of Elevation Church, in their 2 predominately business-oriented locations (one a shopping center and one in an office development) impacted the local merchants.
We structured and sent the surveys from our company and not under the auspices of the church so as to not influence the responses. The survey cards were returned to my attention, and then we disseminated the data. No spin or filtering.
What we found was very encouraging.
