The World Center Church had their Easter ruined when the University of Mississippi Medical Center agreed to let them rent out a space for their service, and then reneged on the deal.
Watch the report from Fox here:
It’s all but guaranteed the pews will be packed and that presented a challenge to Roderick Richardson, the pastor of The Word Center Church in Jackson, Miss.
The non-denominational church has a membership of about 1,200 people – but only 275 can fit in the sanctuary. And the preacher estimated they could have as many as 1,500 people show up for Easter Sunday. http://www.thewordcity.com/
So last January Pastor Richardson started scouting out a new location for his growing church. And it wasn’t long before he found a solution – a conference center run by the University of Mississippi Medical Center.
He signed a contract to rent the space on Jan. 27. On March 27 – the university abruptly canceled the contract and told the church they would not be allowed to use their facility.
“It was a week and two days before the largest service of the year,” Pastor Richardson told me. “They told me the climate at UMMC was not conducive for us to have a service at the facility.”
The climate was not conducive?
“They were afraid IHL might come and say something about a church having a service (in their facility),” the pastor said. IHL is also known as the State Institutions of Higher Learning, the agency that oversees Mississippi’s eight public institutions of higher learning.
“We’re not angry at them because we are Christians,” the pastor said. “We’re just a little frustrated that this particular institution did not keep its word.”