Revival Blog

Allright, that title might be a little too pretentious but I read a post today that looks almost exactly like something I wanted to write. Being pentecostal, I obviously take that as confirmation and from there see myself on the side of God and of course all others are “against Him.” (hopefully you know I am kidding)

I wrote in my post multi-site church madness about my extreme displeasure regarding modern church growth techniques. Michael tried to bait me into addressing the cult of personality issue but I will not bite (in this post, it will surely happen soon). Nevertheless I was challenged about an alternate plan to having a video feed to an offsite location.

In this post I am going to try to frame the problem as I see it regarding multi-site video venues.

There is a giga-church about 45 minutes away from me. It is one of the largest in the nation and has really reaped a harvest in this area. One of its main benefits to the area is that most non-believers now have an answer when asked where they go to church. If you went to a Christmas service there in the last eight or nine years you can call it your church and not have to appease any of your Christian friends by attending their church when asked.

This church has also birthed a whole bunch of churches for its denomination in this area. They don’t call themselves a denomination but every church has the same name, plays the same music, preaches the same way, and uses a common logo. But they are all really different. Just ask the pastor. He is the guy who dresses, teaches, leads, and talks like every other leader in the “fellowship.”

One of their leaders took the leap of faith and planted a church in the town next to mine. He has been striking the ground for a few years and finally has a building. One of the obstacles to growth is that the mother giga-church is so close. But not everyone wants to drive that far to church so he had a hope.

One day, the mother giga-church had a great idea. “Why should everyone have to drive so far to attend our service? We can have a video venue for the people who live 45 minutes away!” That’s right. In the same city they have a plant, they now have a video venue. In less than a year that video venue is boasting just under 5,000 people in attendance. The church plant? Struggling to stay afloat.

The argument is often put forward that the attendance is proof that this is a great idea. All that matters, they say, is that souls are added. In short, the ends justify the means. The fact that the history of the mother church flies in the face of this does not matter.

The giga-church pastor often tells the story of how he struggled for years to keep 40 people in his congregation and at one point called the denominational headquarters fellowship’s head church. They told him that they would send some people to come pastor the small flock from their Bible school. This got the guy angry and renewed his resolve to make this plant work. Like I said, today the church is huge.

But lets conjecture for a minute. What if the head church planted a video venue in the town instead of letting this guy grow into a leader? What if the ends justified the means and they were more interested in “souls” then raising up leaders? Would this church have planted countless churches? Raised up countless missionaries? Would this man have come into his national calling? Would they have a radio station, ministry school, elementary, middle, and high school, school of worship, their own newspaper, halfway houses, foster homes, and who knows how many other ministries? I say they would not.

And therein lies the problem with the multi-site, video venue plan. You are robbing the Body of Christ from receiving its Timothys. I know you have a “campus pastor.” No, it is not the same thing. The person is an administrator and a counselor. That is a far cry from the call to shepherd.

Tomorrow I am going to finish this with my opinion of the root of this problem and put forward a solution. Let me know what you think.

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