Too Many Churches?

There's an interesting story from the Houston area regarding the impact off having 51 churches in a town of under 20,000 people:

They are not the words one expects to hear from a politician or a Southerner, and Leonard Scarcella is both: "Our city has an excessive number of churches."

Scarcella is mayor of this Houston-area community, which has 51 churches and other religious institutions packed into its 7 square miles.

With some 300 undeveloped, potentially revenue-producing acres left in Stafford, officials are scrambling to find a legal way to keep more tax-exempt churches from building here.

"With federal laws, you can't just say, 'We're not going to have any more churches,' " Scarcella said. "We respect the Constitution, but 51 of anything is too much."

Stafford, population 19,227, is the largest city in Texas without a property tax, and it depends on sales taxes and business fees for revenue. Nonprofits have been attracted by its rapid growth and minimal deed restrictions. "It's thrown everything out of balance, plus providing zero revenue. Somebody's got to pay for police, fire and schools," City Councilman Cecil Willis said.

It's hard to believe it takes 51 churches to meet the needs of less than 20,000 people. And of course, there's probably a fair percentage of those folks who don't attend any one of them.

I heard it said once that if people were more like Jesus, we'd have fewer churches. Think about that.

Meanwhile, the folks in Stafford to have a serious problem with so many tax-exempt entities in town. I believe Colorado Springs was having some similar concerns after so many large nonprofits moved to that area. Short of annexing more territory that can be developed into tax paying businesses, I'm not really sure there's much they can do about it (unless, of course, they can convince some of these churches to try working together and merge).