Twenty-Two Problems with Multi-site Churches

A church linked to its pastor through video should not be the norm. A pastor’s primary responsibility is not preaching, but pastoring: shepherding the flock. Not being a member of a multi-site church, I am only presuming the video link is one-way. The pastor can’t see his congregation. But even if he could, a video link doesn’t really allow the pastor to do his job as a pastor effectively. He needs to be present to care for the needs of his congregation.

On point #1, I believe the early church was multi-site in the larger cities. They met in houses, and I expect even the larger houses were not big enough to hold all of the members in a city. Obviously they didn’t have video links. But they did have a plurality of pastors (elders) in each city. I think it possible that the pastors were spread out among the various house churches.

Much has been written on both side of the issue. For instance: http://www.9marks.org/journal/pastor-defends-his-multi-site-church

The technology of broadcasting preaching is really no more problematic than the technology of reprinting books, or even amplifying a voice to speak to a larger audience. Paul would probably have used anything possible to spread the gospel to a broader audience. More pertinent to the argument against multi-site is its tendency toward the propagation of church as a religious economic ecosystem. The production, the celebrity of the staff, the corporate hierarchy inherently required by its infrastructure, and success by size syndrome. The true problems of modern church stem from Americanizing the church via franchising, marketing and the groupthink of social engagement(My church is hip, I’m with cool people, I’m a part of a movement). But multi-site structure does not create these problems, though it does seem to multiply them.

One thing that is greatly missing here is the question of what kind of church makes it easy for a pastor to really make disciples. He hints at it in #3 and a few other places, but let’s state things explicitly. The pastor of a large church will have more difficulty making disciples of the members than the pastor of a small church, and in the same way the pastor of a multi-site church will have more difficulty than even the average megachurch pastor in doing this.

Moreover, inasmuch as many small churches use the big ones as models, you’re going to have thousands of pastors of smaller churches trying to “match the mojo” of the multi-campus mega-churches, not realizing that they don’t have the requisite amount of P.T. Barnum in their blood to recreate an inner Mark Driscoll. So the harm is huge. It is more or less the repudiation of Matthew 28:18-20 among a huge portion of the supposedly fundamental and evangelical pastorate.

Micah,

There is a difference between spreading the Gospel and pastoring a church. You cannot shepherd a congregation from a distance.

Chip, one question—and I’ve not got a fixed answer in my head yet—is whether one can even really “spread the Gospel” remotely. If we look at evangelism efforts that do not include a strong component of discipleship—VBS, Billy Graham Crusades, outreach at the County Fair, TV evangelists, and the like—what we get IMO is a situation where we have a lot of apparent decisions, but very few follow through and become disciples. There are some blessed exceptions with the work of shortwave radio like HCJB and such, but the data I’m seeing so far indicates that as a rule, we are not spreading the Gospel if we do not spend the time and effort to actually make disciples.

OK, I fess up. I’m at least pretty close to that fixed answer, but I like to believe that I’m capable of being persuaded. :^)

Bert,

Totally agree with everything you said about remote evangelism not being the most effective way, but even in your statement you acknowledge that it is possible. My point was not to endorse remote evangelism in any way but to show the difference between evangelism and shepherding. Shepherding is not possible without personal interaction which does not (cannot) happen in satellite churches.

Many are writing as if satellite locations don’t have pastors. Has anyone ever attended a satellite campus that didn’t have an on-site pastor (or multiple pastors in many cases)? I’m just not tracking with the thought process that people attending a video teaching location can not be shepherded and discipled by a pastor. Would welcome feedback on this.

Chip,

You are apparently assuming I’m pro multi-site which I am not. I’m simply saying the structure is not inherently wrong/unbiblical. For instance, I don’t subscribe to Baptist polity in which there is a combination of senior pastor and deacon board as church leadership. While I don’t subscribe to it, I don’t think it’s wrong/unbiblical because there is so much autonomy and flexibility in the organization of ecclesiology.

A church can shepherd and equip through a multi-site venue with multiple pastors and elders just like any single venue church. A multiplicity of elders and mature leaders is the biblical paradigm. Some like Summit Church in Durham are trying to do this even though they are multi site. Again, even while defending MS, I don’t think it’s the best possible variation of ecclesiological paradigm. I’m all for small/home churches.

“In 1909, [J. Frank] Norris…accepted the pastorate of the First Baptist Church in Fort Worth, where he served for forty-four years until his death.”

“In 1935, Norris accepted the pastorate of a second church, Temple Baptist Church in Detroit, Michigan. By 1946, the combined membership of the two congregations was more than 26,000. For sixteen years, Norris commuted by train and plane between the two churches.”

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Frank_Norris

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J. Frank Norris simultaneously pastored two enormous churches a thousand miles apart, in the days before simulcasting was a possibility. (Did he preach in one church one week, and then the other the next? I don’t know.)

With 26,000 members, he clearly never knew everyone. Pastoral discipleship would obviously require a lot of delegation (which is how large multi-sites also are run today.)

I love my gospel-loving friends in multi-site churches

That’s just a weird locution.

Why not just have the local facility have the local pastor do the preaching? I can only think of one reason to have a multi-site church….a celebrity preacher. And by extension the local people wanting a hot, hip preacher. Where am I wrong?

[driddick]

Many are writing as if satellite locations don’t have pastors. Has anyone ever attended a satellite campus that didn’t have an on-site pastor (or multiple pastors in many cases)? I’m just not tracking with the thought process that people attending a video teaching location can not be shepherded and discipled by a pastor. Would welcome feedback on this.

Probably best to answer this with an acknowledgement and two questions. It is granted that it seems very wise to take the man who seems to excel at teaching and let him handle the lion’s share of it. Now the questions:

1. Are not all elders/pastors (Titus uses the titles interchangeably) called to be “apt to teach”? How do they demonstrate their fitness for their office if they do not get regular chances to do so?

2. For the “chosen one”, so to speak, how does he bring the text down to where the “rubber meets the road” if he is not actively involved in the lives of those to whom he is preaching?

So it would seem that, even beyond the relative anonymity of large auditoriums used for video screenings, the “video church” phenomenon is going to work against active discipleship.

I have attended one of the satellite campuses of Driscoll’s church while visiting relatives. I thought that at least for the services I was there, they handled it very well. At the service where we got Driscoll’s message by video, the local pastor actually led the first part of the service, and the music was local as well. After the message, the pastor announced that he and other counselors were available after the service, and they remained near the front so anyone could find them. The other service was entirely local and preached by the local pastor, and at that one, they had communion at the end.

I’d pretty much agree that just having a local church plant there would have been sufficient, Even that group was a little large for the local pastor to know everyone, but that is certainly true in larger fundamental churches as well. You really need more than one elder and a good smaller-groups ministry to be able to shepherd everyone in a large church well, but even the apostles had to deal with that in Jerusalem.

Many of the twenty-two problems apply to churches with multiple services as well.

The early post-apostolic church had multiple congregations under one overseer and we know how that worked out.

[Bert Perry]

Probably best to answer this with an acknowledgement and two questions. It is granted that it seems very wise to take the man who seems to excel at teaching and let him handle the lion’s share of it. Now the questions:

1. Are not all elders/pastors (Titus uses the titles interchangeably) called to be “apt to teach”? How do they demonstrate their fitness for their office if they do not get regular chances to do so?

2. For the “chosen one”, so to speak, how does he bring the text down to where the “rubber meets the road” if he is not actively involved in the lives of those to whom he is preaching?

So it would seem that, even beyond the relative anonymity of large auditoriums used for video screenings, the “video church” phenomenon is going to work against active discipleship.

Bert,

Answer 1. How do single-site churches with more than one pastor on staff accomplish this? I would assume multi-site churches could employ similar approaches.

Answer 2. If your definition of “actively involved” means weekly or daily personal interaction, then every teaching pastor should limit his congregation to 50-100 people. If “actively involved” means that he understands the needs, culture and life realities of his congregation, then multiple locations can work well.

Your final statement that video teaching works against active discipleship is interesting perspective. Recently, the largest study of multi-site congregations conducted to-date, concluded that multi-site churches viewed their satellite locations as stronger at “spiritual growth” than the main campus where teaching was conducted live.

I appreciate your thoughts and the discussion!