The answer to your prayers is just a phonecall away: “After Hurricane Jeanne destroyed their steeple, members of the Crossroads Community Church didn’t know where they would find the money to replace it. So they prayed for an answer. But they never expected it would come in the form of a cell phone tower. Businessman Paul Scott, who specializes in building disguised or ‘stealth’ cellphone towers, approached leaders of the church last year with the idea of building a 120-foot-tall tower in the form of a blue-gray metal cross. Concealed inside the top portion of the main pole would be antennas used by Sprint, Nextel and Metro PCS.”
(Thanks, Steve! Elsewhere: Pruned explores cellular infrastructure).
Jeanne was two years ago! God & cell-phones sure take their time.
Cell phone companies do this all the time. A few years ago a church steeple burnt down in farmington CT, and it was rebuilt will cell company money and a bunch of antennas inside of it.
In Franklin, NH, another company erected a ‘flag pole’ on property leased from a local church- of course the flag pole is about a foot or so in diameter….
Anyhow, it’s a common thing, and really quite win-win. Bravo.
-dfenstrate
Would Chartres be as romantic and inspirational as it is today if they used the same commercial tactic described in this article to rebuild after the fire in the late 12th century? Our churches are becoming more and more indistinguishable from office buildings. Separation of church and commerce is my cry!