Traffic study halted after screenshots leaked of memo sent out by megachurch staff urging members to help manipulate the results (2024)

ROCKWALL, Texas — At any point of the week – there’s no shortage of cars whizzing down the stretch of Ralph Hall Parkway near Lakepointe Church in Rockwall.

But anyone who lives nearby will tell you no day is busier than Sunday – when traffic here can be downright unbearable as thousands leave worship at the megachurch.

“There's just lines and lines of cars, and then anybody that's trying to drive up and down Ralph Hall Parkway has to stop and wait,” said Kenneth Teague who lives a few houses down from the intersection.

So it's not at all surprising Lakepointe wants a stop light installed to help ease some of that congestion. What is surprising is a memo that went out over the weekend.

“They asked lifegroup leaders to share with their classrooms and their other members to sign up to drive around 10 laps during a one-hour time period for five days from May 14-19,” said Amanda Cunningham, who stopped being a member of the church in March.

She shared screenshots with WFAA of the scheme.

“It laid out a plan to create false traffic patterns and mislead the city,” Cunningham said.

Lakepointe Church says in order to get a traffic light, a traffic study needed to be commissioned and that a "staff member made the unfortunate decision to attempt to sign people up from within Lakepointe to positively impact the count."

“You don't have to be a Christian to be able to look at this and see that it's deceptive and dishonest,” Cunningham said.

The plan fell through before the first shift Tuesday morning, after Cunningham and other concerned residents alerted Rockwall city leaders.

Lakepointe said the “decision (to impact the count) was made without knowledge by senior executive leadership” and added that the church was footing the bill for both the light and the study and no tax dollars were being used.

Here’s the full statement the church sent to WFAA by Lakepointe Church Senior Executive Pastor Tim Smith:

"In an effort to increase the safety of our people, our traffic officers and to improve the egress of traffic, we made application to the city for a traffic signal at our main south entrance on W Ralph Hall Parkway. From our initial application with the city, it has been Lakepointe’s commitment to pay for the total cost of the signal being installed. There was no expectation that any tax dollars would be utilized if the city approved the request for a light. The city has been a great partner to Lakepointe and we have always worked diligently to bless the city of Rockwall.

Part of the due diligence and process of that light being installed was the commission of a traffic study at our entrance with a ratio of cars needed to fulfill its requirements. It was determined that the study would be held over specific hours during the week beginning on May 13. On Friday afternoon, a staff member made the unfortunate decision to attempt to sign up people from within Lakepointe to positively impact the count. That decision was made without knowledge by senior executive leadership at Lakepointe and the sign-up list was immediately taken down (on Saturday) as we were made aware of what occurred. We immediately apologized to our city leaders who made the decision to postpone the traffic count. We are in the process of reaching out to all the leaders who received the sign up and are apologizing to them as well.

We regret how this reflects on the Body of Christ and its impact in our community.

We love our city and have much respect for our leaders. We will continue to work with the city to make the traffic around Lakepointe as safe as possible."

“It sounded kind of crazy to me like, especially at church,” Teague said. “I just I don't understand why they would need to do that.”

When we reached out to the city of Rockwall – they told us they will revisit the issue of a new study later in the year using their own consultants, which the church will pay for. That means any potential changes to the road, wont be coming any time soon.

This isn't the first time this church has faced scrutiny. Lakepointe was heavily criticized after senior pastor Josh Howerton was accused of plagiarizing an apology for a ‘joke’ he made about wedding nights during a sermon. Howerton later explained that the pastor he was accused of stealing from helped him with the sermon.

For Cunningham and others, the traffic study incident just adds on to their criticism of the megachurch.

“God actually says that the disciples of Jesus will be known by the way they love one another. Lying is not love. Being deceptive is not love, playing tricks on people and asking them to be part of that, it's not love,” Cunningham said. “It’s very disappointing to be represented this way as a church, as a brand, as a business, but really just as people, this is not how Christians should be treating each other.”