Yesterday in Toronto we were visiting our son who is living at a large Bible College and Seminary that will remain nameless.
At 5:30 PM, there were only 3 cars in the parking lot. We were the 4th. The place was deserted. Apparently the students have other places they can be on the weekend. Nothing going on inside except for the sound of crickets.
However, on entry, we were informed that parking our car would cost us $1.00 per hour. I couldn’t help but point out to the girl on the desk that there was nobody there; there was no reason to attempt to monetize an empty lot.
But, not wanting to do this fine institution out of some revenue, my wife and son, who had change were happy to oblige.
Then we had to wait while a receipt was hand-written. That is to say, with a pen and ink. I am not making this up. I don’t know what they do when the college is very busy, but there must be much receipt-writing.
And since we had only paid for a single hour, we watched the clock as we ate — choice of hamburger, pizza or hamburger — under threat of having our car towed away.
I felt like perhaps I should write them a thousand dollar check so they don’t have to go through this nonsense with people. Pay it forward for the next thousand parking hours.
But then I also thought this is a public relations disaster in progress.
Policies need to make sense.
If they need money, ask for a donation. Tell people, “We ask visitors to make a voluntary donation to help us pay to pave the extension on our parking lot in the spring.”
Some would simply pass. I might myself, but only because I would file the request away and see if perhaps in the near future there is not an opportunity for more significant philanthropy.
Overall however, adding up whatever change people dropped in the bucket, they’d end up with more money and a much better relationship with the Christian constituency in that city.
A dollar an hour with only four cars in an empty parking lot on a Saturday night just seems petty.
I’m currently reading Slow Church: 
Some of you know that I work in a Christian bookstore. We don’t have a lot of money, and it’s a fairly small town, so our website essentially bounces people to a WordPress blog, that serves the purpose. Last week a woman phoned to say she wanted to order the wall hanging we had advertised. I assured her we don’t do online commerce on our site, but as she described it, I realized that Christian Book Distributors (CBD) was paying WordPress for an advertisement to appear on our store blog. As if they don’t own enough of the market already. And as if this doesn’t raise some ethical questions. Say what you will about Amazon (and we do say things) CBD has been the cause of the demise of local Christian bookstores for more than two decades now; their damage really predates widespread use of the internet. We’re thinking of advertising that we’re now accepting orders from their site to fulfill here. They just have to copy and paste the shopping cart and email it to us, and then delete the cart. We figure what we lose on the deeper discount stuff we’ll make up where their discount isn’t really that great. (Their shipping charges to the frozen north are a flat 25%; which really adds to the price.)
But the choice of a school is often based on superficials. It’s not, “This one has the course I want;” or “The faculty of this one include some renowned authors;” or “Graduates from _________ are often recruited by the best employers.” Rather, the kids go where their friends are going. Or they take a two hour of the academic facilities only to choose a winner based on the promised dorm life.
This fall our youngest son began attending a Christian university. In the process, we are quickly learning that higher education really means higher priced education. Dang, this is costly.
Thinking Out Loud 