Texas Megachurch Makes Mega Mistake Rigging Traffic Study
Megachurches are known for their over-the-top Christmas pageants, stage productions, massive campuses, and killer coffee shops. One megachurch in Texas recently found itself coming under a lot of scrutiny thanks to a pesky traffic study. What started as an innocent little study turned into a strange comedy of errors that ended in some nasty headlines.
Lakepointe Church In Rockwall, Texas Just Wanted A Traffic Light
If you've ever driven by a megachurch on a Sunday after the congregation has been dismissed, you know that traffic can be a bit of a headache. Lakepointe Church in Rockwall was just hoping to ease that pain a little bit when they decided to petition the city for a traffic light. This is where things get wild.
To get a traffic light, a study needs to be done to show that it is actually needed. Cities don't just go planting traffic lights like Johnny Appleseed. An engineer gets called in to see if the amount of traffic in a specific area is enough to warrant getting a traffic light.
Wanting their traffic light, Lakepointe Church took matters into their own hands.
How To Rig A Traffic Study Lakepointe Style
What happens next sounds like something straight out of an episode of The Righteous Gemstones. Someone concocted a plan to make sure that Lakepointe Church got its traffic light. According to reports, the plan involved padding the numbers to make it look like the traffic near the church is horrendous.
An email, that was leaked and is circulating the internet, went out asking church leaders to sign up to drive laps around the church while the study is being done. The idea, of course, being that the amount of fabricated traffic would be enough to get the traffic light installed. The craziest part is that the recipients of the email were asked to sign up for whatever shift they could do to drive their laps.
Just to recap, people were being asked to sign up for a shift to drive laps around a church to pad the numbers on a traffic study. It is the single most ridiculous thing I've heard of a megachurch trying to pull. There have been reports of places that have money hidden in the walls. These guys are rigging a traffic study. It's insane.
Church leadership has since apologized and blamed an over-zealous staffer for the impropriety. The traffic study has been canceled, and it doesn't look like there will be a traffic light installed any time soon.
CHECK IT OUT: 20 Things Us Texans Have To Explain To Out-Of-Town'ers
10 Myths About Texas That Even Some Natives Believe
Gallery Credit: Aaron Savage, Townsquare Media Killeen-Temple