Tuesday, December 19, 2006

What's so cool about selling a church?

I have a listing for a church, which I've been trying to sell now for some time. It's actually a very beautiful church in the heart of North Dallas.

It's a congregation of about 400 Black Southern Baptists, and if you ever attended a sunday service there you would be impressed. It's quite a moving experience--imagine a 50 person choir singing and a stirring sermon.

The 1st question people ask me is, "Why are they selling the church?" And, the answer is somewhat sad. Back in the early part of this decade the church had a charter school. The school had over 400 students and most of them where black.

Believe it or not, the neighbors attacked the school's charter. They said some of the kids where going off school grounds and vandalizing properties in the neighborhood, which may or may not have been true. In reality, whether there were or weren't a few bad apples at the school is irrelevant. The truth of the matter is, kids will be kids. It's why they are sent to school to learn to become functioning members of society. There really wasn't any specific issue that could not have been addressed and corrected, but the neighbors still fought the school, and eventually, they took the school before the City Council. Dallas City Council ended up siding with the neighbors, and the City of Dallas shut down the school's charter.

As you can imagine, the charter school was a major source of revenue for the church, and once the school left the church began to struggle. They also had a 38,000 sq ft building that couldn't be fully utilized.

Notice I haven't used the "R" word, yet. But, this neighborhood where the church is, is predominantly white, and they weren't seeking to reconcile any differences when they attacked this school. They saught to shut the school down, and they were successful.

Most of the congregation became disenfranchised after the school was attacked. A lot of the congregation had young children attending the school, and they had to fight to keep a charter so their kids could go to school. This is a trajedy.

Yes, these people were victims of racism.

So, selling this church will be some sort of vindication for these families because they will be able to move to a place where they are welcome, and they will have money to build a church they can be proud of.

My dream is to be able to walk into the new church one Sunday morning while the Reverend is giving a sermon and sit in the back pew. The Reverend notices me sitting back there and gives me a wink--I just sit back there and listen and look at all the families sitting there and know that I had a little something to do with it.

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