Mercy Culture Church files permits for ‘religious discipleship center’ in Fort Worth
Mercy Culture Church took another step Tuesday toward building a ‘religious discipleship center’ that could house up to 115 people.
The three-story building will include a dining hall, exercise room, offices, gathering spaces along with two stories of residential sleeping rooms, according to a permit application filed Tuesday.
The project is expected to cost $13.2 million, according to an April filing with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation.
The new structure would be on church property with the ground floor covering roughly 7,500 square feet.
This would likely take up part of the church’s parking lot. Plans to build on the parking lot sparked resistance in 2022 when the church proposed a 100-bed human trafficking shelter on the site.
Residents of the nearby Oakhurst and Riverside neighborhoods raised concerns about church parking spilling into their neighborhoods.
They also questioned the wisdom of locating a human trafficking victim shelter next to a single family neighborhood.
It’s not clear if this project is another iteration of the trafficking victim shelter, however, opposition to the shelter project has drawn the repeated ire of Mercy Culture lead Pastor Landon Schott.
Schott called those opposed to the project an “insane demonic resistance” in a May 2023 sermon, and cited opposition to the shelter in response to those critical of his church’s association with former Gateway Church Pastor Robert Morris.
Representatives for Mercy Culture did not immediately respond to an email from the Star-Telegram requesting comment Tuesday.
It’s not clear if Mercy Culture will need a zoning change to make this project a reality. The church withdrew a zoning change application in 2022 in the face of neighborhood resistance.
Regardless, the city will still need to review the application to make sure doesn’t violate the current zoning, a spokesperson for the city’s development services department said in an April email to the Star-Telegram.
Construction can’t start until the city approves the permit.
