One of the most popular stories on the Tucson Weekly‘s website is one former staff writer Saxon Burns wrote about The Cool Church in 2007. There was a somewhat predictable bit of drama at the time between the church’s pastor, late night TV commercial star David McCallister and Wingspan about the multi-location church and their views on homosexuality, so Saxon went to check the place out himself. Our article is still on the first page of Google results for the church’s name, so every few days, there’s a surge of traffic when someone new is looking for info on the place. You’d think at some point in the church’s twenty year history, they’d figure out that trying to be cool is the least cool thing you can do, but whatever. Evangelicism is notoriously slow at figuring things out.
However, being the butt of a joke in one town isn’t quite enough, so The Cool Church is expanding to Mesa on Jan. 12 of 2014, bringing odd necklace choices, bad hair-bleaching and creepy tans to the East Valley.
Of course, one might wonder why an area with nearly 20 Protestant churches with a two mile radius (and one of Phoenix’s largest churches, Christ’s Church of the Valley less than three miles away) would need another competitor for worshipers, but maybe those houses of worship lack the same icky sheen that The Cool Church brings to the party. Good luck, East Mesa, and we’re sorry. We tried to contain him. We really did.
This article appears in Nov 21-27, 2013.
You should learn how to spell if you consider yourself a journalist, or at least hire a proof reader.
“there’s a surge of traffic when someone knew is looking for info on the place. “
it should be when someone NEW….
I agree the cool church is very un-cool maybe they will move out of Tucson permanently.
Vanessa: Thanks for the note. Typos happen, even in the most well-proofed publications.
People should not follow a criticism of proof-reading with a grammatical error.
Nothing said cool more than McAllister’s mullet
Dear lord. He looks like a skinny Guy Fieri, with even less charisma.
DM: I bet he has his own “Donkey Sauce” recipe as well
This guy just creeps me out. Maybe he’ll move away.
He shut down East Calley after 1 Sunday… No one showed
Wow I might have to go check this church out any anti – gay church I like. . Between this rag and the ADS we must have the worst papers in the country.
If you all consider yourselves Christians, you should look at the things you are saying about a man of God. You may not agree with his ways, but there is only ONE judge and you are not HIM. You all really need to look into your hearts and figure out who or what you are!! Christians do not judge. It tells you plain and clear in the Bible that you should not judge others. I don’t know this man, I’ve never been to one of his churches, but I’m going. And I’m also going to see for myself how he is. If i don’t like his sermon, i will simply walk out. But i would not be doing what you all are doing. I pray for you all. God be with you. 🙂
Tax the churches
You should been here in Michigan where old Dave got his start. Almost 50 years old, dressing and trying to talk like he’s 25?
Ask him how he handled the death of his 1st wife and how he quit his church in Kalamazoo when the membership dared challenged him on his teachings, including the teaching of men to spank their wives when they wouldn’t submit to the man’s authority.