Over the years my friends at Leadership Network have been kind enough to connect me with some great pastors from whom I have been privileged to learn a lot, such as Michael Slaughter, Tim Keller, Walt Kallestad, Bob Roberts, Wayne Cordeiro, and Larry Osborne. Thanks to Leadership Network, I have gotten together with Osborne a few times a year usually to eat something and learn something from a great guy who has maintained most of his laid-back hippie-esque likeability. Larry has led North Coast Church in San Diego since 1980 and is well known among pastors for his insights on leadership.
Larry is perhaps best known as one of the pioneers of video venues. Video has become an increasingly popular option among churches wanting to expand without spending huge amounts of money on large new meeting rooms. Due to ongoing rapid growth, Mars Hill Church which I pastor in Seattle has gone to video services in addition to church planting to continually open up more seats for more people. At our tenth anniversary this October we will be expanding to seven services in three locations, and I will be preaching live at four services and via video at three services. At present, we are scrambling to complete renovation on a church with 1,000 seats that was given to us in a merger with another church in our city.
One out of four megachurches [a megachurch is a church of 2,000 or more in attendance] is holding services at multiple locations.
One out of three churches says it is thinking about developing a new service in a new location.
The multi-site movement is represented in every area of the country, across many denominations, and in churches of all sizes, especially those with attendances of 250 and up.
We predict that 30,000 American churches will be multi-site within the next few years, which means one or more multi-site churches will probably be in your area.
Nine of the ten largest churches in the U.S. are multi-site with the only exception being Lakewood Church with Joel Osteen in Houston, Texas.
The entire concept of video venues is very controversial, particularly with house-church emerging types, who curiously argue against the technological advancement with their blogs and vodcasts. Nonetheless, the trend seems to be catching on and is likely to only grow in the coming years as live-streaming video technology via the internet becomes cheaper and easier. For any church leaders wanting to explore the entire multi-site concept, Larry Osborne is hosting a conference along with Leadership Network at his place in San Diego February 5-6, 2007.
I'm looking forward to speaking about what we are learning at Mars Hill and focusing on what it means to follow Paul's command in 1 Corinthians 9:22-23, "I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel." Sadly, with the missional conversation often turning toward authentic community, the focus of using every possible means provided in culture for the gospel to reach as many people as possible is getting lost. It is as if the thought of thousands of people getting saved is a bad thing because it results in a megachurch without enough seats for all the people, as if the goal of ministry was to connect fewer people to Jesus. In saying this I am not defending megachurches in general, but am arguing that it is possible to be urban and evangelical, emerging and mega, authentic and video, evangelistic and reformed because, in the missional world, "by all possible means" is to be taken literally.
I know you do not know me from a rock, so questions like these come a bit out of the nowhere. But I wanted to ask a question about the theology of multi-site. I know you are a brother who wants to be theologically driven, to have the tip of your spear be theologically sound doctrine which is bibilically faithful. I hear you about "by all possible means" - but we all know that "all" must be qualified, as the means to our ends must always be justified.
Some of the guys I have grown to respect at a distance (Piper, yourself) are multi-site/campus. Yet I still have some real questions which I view as shortcomings rather than prohibitions to multi-site. Please know that these are questions, not simply conclusions stated as such.
1. Practical - Hebrews 13:7 - how does one obey this passage, if the outcome of our leaders way of life is not and cannot be known?
2. Theological - De-carnational ministry. As much as we are about the incarnation and incarnational ministry, video preaching seems to be going in the opposite direction. The man of God, standing before the people of God, proclaiming the Word or God will be greatly disembodied.
3. Ecclesial - Church polity - elder led local churches will end up having a pluarlity of elders at the central site (or even scattered) who give oversight to a number of geographically dispersed locations. As such, the stewardship of local authority could be morphed into some sort hybrid episcopacy. "Elders" in one location are overseeing "host pastors" in another. This seems to be a strain, if not an outright denial of elder led, local church, polities.
4. Additional Ecclesial Observation - It seems that the one church in many locations is not new. The church in the 3rd century transitioned to a bishopric to have one church in many locations. The centralized leader became what is now know as the bishop, the presbyters became parish priests, and control moved upwards into a geographically separated hierarchy.
I think these questions are perhaps resolvable and able to be navigated well, but I do hope you see why some (who are not desiring to be emergent, house church abasses) might have concerns. That said, I do wish you guys well in your multi-site launch and 10 year celebration.
May God in his grace will show you the path to his future as you walk well through the challenges of opening up seats and reaching more people for Jesus in the days ahead.
I will be honest with you and say that we struggled greatly at the elder level on these and many other issues. On point 1 - as long as there are elders doing their job well at each campus I think we've got this covered. On point 2 - I think the multi-campus model allows us to go out into various parts of the city which is more missional than everyone driving into one central location. The truth is that on Sundays no one has any connection to me as it is. In the past year we peaked at me preaching 5 times live back to back for over an hour a shot (8:30, 10:30, 12:30, 5pm, 7pm). With the few minutes between services I get something to eat or drink, go over my notes, use the restroom, and say hi to my immediate and extended family members who go to various services. I don't meet or greet anyone and can't. If someone, for example, came up to me after a service and confessed a major sin or need I could do nothing to help them because I've got to get back up and preach. So, we have teams of leaders for prayer and elders available to meet with folks as needed right after service. Plus, once a room gets over about 50 feet in length you can't really see facial expressions etc. so you end up with cameras in the back of the room. And, once the room fills up you've got overflow in another room so we figured since half the church was watching a screen we may as well put the screen near their house so they could bring their neighbors. I do believe that it is much better to have each part of the body doing it's parts and my part is preaching. The embodiment of the sermon cannot happen on the stage on Sunday anyways. I can't model being a good husband or father, for example, on the stage Sundays. That happens in Community Groups which for us are house church type gatherings with dinner, Bible study, mentoring, prayer, etc. that meet in homes around the region. The plan this fall is to have over 200 of these groups and most of them discuss and apply the sermon so that it becomes embodied. We've found this to work much better. I preach principles and then in loving groups methods are shared and implemented. On the "man of God" statement that is what I think video gets away from - every man filled with the Spirit is a man of God with a ministry to do and folks can't rely on me to be the connecting point for a growing church of 5000 people. On points 3-4, this one is the most difficult. We do not want to go to a more Episcopal model with a Bishop. So, our elder team is currently 15 men and expanding to perhaps 25 in the next few months. These men each work shepherding an area of the church (e.g. biblical counseling, groups, etc.) in elder teams. Those teams oversee the entirety of our campuses so that the departments are unified and spread across a region. We have not gone to anything beyond an elder team and had to rewrite our bylaws to make it clear what decisions require an all elder vote as with now 3 service campuses and 1 admininstrative campus with 7 Sunday services and more possible soon we would have had a logjam on decisions without cleaning up who decides what. This took 6 months of the elders rewriting the bylaws.
In the end, we are in a weird place which is taking a lot of creativity. We are in one of the nations least churched cities growing by 1200 3 years in a row where they have zoned out large churches from building. We have added as many services on Sundays as we can without me dying of a heart attack. We have planted a ton of churches and sent out some of our best people. And, I won't do Saturday night because it is the only entire day I have with my family and I already work half that day as it is getting ready for Sunday. So, we start turning people away or go multi-campus. To be honest, it is messy, complicated, and a ton of work to pull it all together. Most guys don't have these weird variables and I'd be lying if I said there weren't days I wish it was simpler.
Thanks for the response. Your sermon the other day in 1 Cor rolling out the plan was very compelling; one of the best I have heard for multi-site, placing it in a proper theological context. To be honest, many of the multis are less missional and effective with lost people than you guys. Most of the arguments I hear on this are pragmatically driven without any theological reflection. Too many Jesus people in America are asking "what works" without knowing what the heck "working" would mean. I don't hear that from you guys. Your layered elder model seems sound--well centered in the range of the New Testament teaching on the matter; I pray that you guys stay in close relationship and continue to send young preachers out the door...even across town.
Many of the multi-site plans rolling out span much larger geographies which exacerbates issues 3 and 4 to the point where a team of bishops would become a reality. But to be honest "polity" is usually not a chief concern in evangelicalism. Even the elder model you guys are moving to would be lost outside of a city/metro area. Additionally, it seems contextualization takes a beating when you get beyond even certain regional geographical bounds...I love hearing Piper but I don't want to watch him on screen - he is in Minnesota...a very different world than Seatle or Nashville. Plus we need more guys swinging the bat in the local pulpit, bringing the Scriptures to that time and place. But I'll keep Keller, Piper, and a hairy Seatle guy on my iPod for the car.
On a side note - I knew some of the guys you were rolling with to launch Mars Hill...but had my head down so much with Athletes in Action stuff that I did not know all that you guys were about. Once I heard Piper distinguish you from the emergent crowd at a pastor's conference in Feb 05, I grabbed your first book and put it in the stack. Then...God threw out my back in Biloxi, MS when I was leading a young adult team to work on stuff after Katrina hit. So some bizarre twists had me face down in a real live red carpet pew of a southern, southern church reading your first book. Feel the irony.
I have since reconnected a bit with Gary and Mike over the past year as I feel a common mission with you guys. Some strange, and now complicated events brought me to the post where God has me today, but at a distance I feel at home with the Acts 29 vision. Finally, I am an Irish dude, coverted at 19 in college, ex-college wrestler (so I can still take most guys) with a bit of a violent past. So you can imagine how I got all frothy listening to your boot camp mp3 on 1 Tim 3. We do need more dudes.
I appreciate what you are doing. Watch your life and doctrine - persevere in them, you have many hearers. Let me know if you guys ever need my sword for anything - I am glad it worked out for Dr. Ware to come.
Mark,
I know you do not know me from a rock, so questions like these come a bit out of the nowhere. But I wanted to ask a question about the theology of multi-site. I know you are a brother who wants to be theologically driven, to have the tip of your spear be theologically sound doctrine which is bibilically faithful. I hear you about "by all possible means" - but we all know that "all" must be qualified, as the means to our ends must always be justified.
Some of the guys I have grown to respect at a distance (Piper, yourself) are multi-site/campus. Yet I still have some real questions which I view as shortcomings rather than prohibitions to multi-site. Please know that these are questions, not simply conclusions stated as such.
1. Practical - Hebrews 13:7 - how does one obey this passage, if the outcome of our leaders way of life is not and cannot be known?
2. Theological - De-carnational ministry. As much as we are about the incarnation and incarnational ministry, video preaching seems to be going in the opposite direction. The man of God, standing before the people of God, proclaiming the Word or God will be greatly disembodied.
3. Ecclesial - Church polity - elder led local churches will end up having a pluarlity of elders at the central site (or even scattered) who give oversight to a number of geographically dispersed locations. As such, the stewardship of local authority could be morphed into some sort hybrid episcopacy. "Elders" in one location are overseeing "host pastors" in another. This seems to be a strain, if not an outright denial of elder led, local church, polities.
4. Additional Ecclesial Observation - It seems that the one church in many locations is not new. The church in the 3rd century transitioned to a bishopric to have one church in many locations. The centralized leader became what is now know as the bishop, the presbyters became parish priests, and control moved upwards into a geographically separated hierarchy.
I think these questions are perhaps resolvable and able to be navigated well, but I do hope you see why some (who are not desiring to be emergent, house church abasses) might have concerns. That said, I do wish you guys well in your multi-site launch and 10 year celebration.
May God in his grace will show you the path to his future as you walk well through the challenges of opening up seats and reaching more people for Jesus in the days ahead.
Reid Monaghan, Pastor, Inversion Fellowship
www.powerofchange.org
I will be honest with you and say that we struggled greatly at the elder level on these and many other issues. On point 1 - as long as there are elders doing their job well at each campus I think we've got this covered. On point 2 - I think the multi-campus model allows us to go out into various parts of the city which is more missional than everyone driving into one central location. The truth is that on Sundays no one has any connection to me as it is. In the past year we peaked at me preaching 5 times live back to back for over an hour a shot (8:30, 10:30, 12:30, 5pm, 7pm). With the few minutes between services I get something to eat or drink, go over my notes, use the restroom, and say hi to my immediate and extended family members who go to various services. I don't meet or greet anyone and can't. If someone, for example, came up to me after a service and confessed a major sin or need I could do nothing to help them because I've got to get back up and preach. So, we have teams of leaders for prayer and elders available to meet with folks as needed right after service. Plus, once a room gets over about 50 feet in length you can't really see facial expressions etc. so you end up with cameras in the back of the room. And, once the room fills up you've got overflow in another room so we figured since half the church was watching a screen we may as well put the screen near their house so they could bring their neighbors. I do believe that it is much better to have each part of the body doing it's parts and my part is preaching. The embodiment of the sermon cannot happen on the stage on Sunday anyways. I can't model being a good husband or father, for example, on the stage Sundays. That happens in Community Groups which for us are house church type gatherings with dinner, Bible study, mentoring, prayer, etc. that meet in homes around the region. The plan this fall is to have over 200 of these groups and most of them discuss and apply the sermon so that it becomes embodied. We've found this to work much better. I preach principles and then in loving groups methods are shared and implemented. On the "man of God" statement that is what I think video gets away from - every man filled with the Spirit is a man of God with a ministry to do and folks can't rely on me to be the connecting point for a growing church of 5000 people. On points 3-4, this one is the most difficult. We do not want to go to a more Episcopal model with a Bishop. So, our elder team is currently 15 men and expanding to perhaps 25 in the next few months. These men each work shepherding an area of the church (e.g. biblical counseling, groups, etc.) in elder teams. Those teams oversee the entirety of our campuses so that the departments are unified and spread across a region. We have not gone to anything beyond an elder team and had to rewrite our bylaws to make it clear what decisions require an all elder vote as with now 3 service campuses and 1 admininstrative campus with 7 Sunday services and more possible soon we would have had a logjam on decisions without cleaning up who decides what. This took 6 months of the elders rewriting the bylaws.
In the end, we are in a weird place which is taking a lot of creativity. We are in one of the nations least churched cities growing by 1200 3 years in a row where they have zoned out large churches from building. We have added as many services on Sundays as we can without me dying of a heart attack. We have planted a ton of churches and sent out some of our best people. And, I won't do Saturday night because it is the only entire day I have with my family and I already work half that day as it is getting ready for Sunday. So, we start turning people away or go multi-campus. To be honest, it is messy, complicated, and a ton of work to pull it all together. Most guys don't have these weird variables and I'd be lying if I said there weren't days I wish it was simpler.
Thanks for the response. Your sermon the other day in 1 Cor rolling out the plan was very compelling; one of the best I have heard for multi-site, placing it in a proper theological context. To be honest, many of the multis are less missional and effective with lost people than you guys. Most of the arguments I hear on this are pragmatically driven without any theological reflection. Too many Jesus people in America are asking "what works" without knowing what the heck "working" would mean. I don't hear that from you guys. Your layered elder model seems sound--well centered in the range of the New Testament teaching on the matter; I pray that you guys stay in close relationship and continue to send young preachers out the door...even across town.
Many of the multi-site plans rolling out span much larger geographies which exacerbates issues 3 and 4 to the point where a team of bishops would become a reality. But to be honest "polity" is usually not a chief concern in evangelicalism. Even the elder model you guys are moving to would be lost outside of a city/metro area. Additionally, it seems contextualization takes a beating when you get beyond even certain regional geographical bounds...I love hearing Piper but I don't want to watch him on screen - he is in Minnesota...a very different world than Seatle or Nashville. Plus we need more guys swinging the bat in the local pulpit, bringing the Scriptures to that time and place. But I'll keep Keller, Piper, and a hairy Seatle guy on my iPod for the car.
On a side note - I knew some of the guys you were rolling with to launch Mars Hill...but had my head down so much with Athletes in Action stuff that I did not know all that you guys were about. Once I heard Piper distinguish you from the emergent crowd at a pastor's conference in Feb 05, I grabbed your first book and put it in the stack. Then...God threw out my back in Biloxi, MS when I was leading a young adult team to work on stuff after Katrina hit. So some bizarre twists had me face down in a real live red carpet pew of a southern, southern church reading your first book. Feel the irony.
I have since reconnected a bit with Gary and Mike over the past year as I feel a common mission with you guys. Some strange, and now complicated events brought me to the post where God has me today, but at a distance I feel at home with the Acts 29 vision. Finally, I am an Irish dude, coverted at 19 in college, ex-college wrestler (so I can still take most guys) with a bit of a violent past. So you can imagine how I got all frothy listening to your boot camp mp3 on 1 Tim 3. We do need more dudes.
I appreciate what you are doing. Watch your life and doctrine - persevere in them, you have many hearers. Let me know if you guys ever need my sword for anything - I am glad it worked out for Dr. Ware to come.
Soli Deo Gloria
Reid Monaghan, Pastor, Inversion Fellowship
www.powerofchange.org