A Christian Group Is Trying to Put a McDonald's Franchise in a Church

A Christian group in New Jersey is attempting to purchase a McDonald’s franchise license, then open the restaurant in a church. This is somewhat unusual, not least because I always figured Jesus was more of a Taco Bell guy.

The group is called the McMass Project (seriously), and they are trying to fund this franchise purchase (to the tune of a cool $1 million) through Indiegogo. To prove I’m not making up the reasoning for why they want to do this, I’m just going to quote them directly:

“It’s time for churches to engage with entrepreneurship. The McMass Project is helping churches keep pace in the modern world. We can solve all of these problems and become more present in culture by establishing McDonald’s franchises in churches!” the group says.

Paul Di Lucca, one of the founders of McMass, told NBC that “Christianity is unable to capture modern audiences,” while McDonald’s restaurants serve 70 million people every day. The group therefore sees it as the perfect partnership.

I’m guessing the McMass Project has not noticed that McDonald’s has been on a losing streak lately, or else they would’ve gone with Chik-Fil-A. Actually, the fact that they didn’t go with Chik-Fil-A has to be the most baffling part of this whole story. Regardless, it goes without saying that this idea is pretty coocoo for Cocoa Puffs; it’s hard to fathom the link between “a lot of people go to McDonald’s” and “if those people went to a McDonald’s in a church, we could hook ’em with the Jesus!” I can’t see any legal issues — McDonald’s is a private business, not the government — but it does seem like this is a “Step 1: Acquire church McDonald’s. Step 2: ??????? Step 3: PROFIT!” scenario. As far as what it would look like, my best guess is picture the pews in the lead image on this post filled with McRibs (which is definitely an improvement, let’s be fair).

The McMass Project’s indiegogo has, at the time of this posting, raised a generous portion of the total, which is a bald-faced lie, they’ve got $117. I somehow doubt this post will lead to a flood of increased donations, but I guess stranger things have happened.