Photo from the Cornerstone Drive-In Facebook page

During the winter doldrums, I’m catching up on some of the stories I didn’t get to during the long Drive-In-a-Day Odyssey that took up most of my time last year. One of those is about a church in Scotts Hill TN that illustrates my definition of a drive-in theater.

In May 2017, the Cornerstone Church built its own drive-in screen and started showing faith-based movies on Friday and Saturday nights. Admission was free and open to the public, and there was a concession trailer with popcorn, drinks, hot dogs and burgers. In July, the operation was profiled on WBBJ, Jackson’s News Leader, in a video that I couldn’t embed here. The drive-in continued showing films on weekends until closing its season in mid-October.

“Teenagers can take their girlfriends on dates here for free instead of having to worrying about asking their parents for money,” Cornerstone’s Joanie Gant told WBBJ. “The parents don’t have to worry about what they’re seeing because they know it’s going to be a faith based film.” There’s a good picture of the full screen at the Lexington Progress.

As I wrote over a year ago, a drive-in is any outdoor theater at a fixed location where members of the public can drive their own cars in to watch a movie on a recurring basis. The Cornerstone is unconventional, but it fits the definition as well as the Blue Starlite or the Apache. Once it opens again in 2018, I’ll need to add it to my official drive-in list.