Ecclesia Church in Houston, Tex., announced Sunday that it signed an agreement to purchase a warehouse, formerly a popular nightclub, that a local strip club wanted to buy. Pastor Chris Seay told his congregation that the 50,000-square-foot warehouse would be used to expand the church in the downtown Houston area. Seay told the Houston Press that he had to move quickly if he wanted to make the buy.
“We had to move quickly, which is a little hard for churches to do, because we would tend to be like, ‘Let’s pray about it for a year,'” he said. “And there would already be stripper poles all around the place at that point. We could take them out, or find some creative way to use them in worship, but I don’t know what that is. But whatever they would do to the building would not be what we would do to the building.”
The purchase was made for $3.75 million. Seay told his congregation that it wasn’t his original intent to prevent the strip club from purchasing the property, but “it’s not a bad bonus.” He also said the warehouse was in a “key place in the city.”
Local news media reports existing businesses in the area are very happy with the church’s purchase, saying it will increase foot traffic and weekends and will provide a “great improvement” to the neighborhood.
