At Grace, one of the things we are blessed to have is a few men who are called by God to preach. I tend to believe most churches should have a growing number of people like this. When I am out of town, these are the guys who step up and bring the congregation God’s word. But we have changed this so that when I finish a series (this means I’m done preaching through a book or a thematic series like The Ordo Salutis) one of these men preaches even when I’m there. I get to hear the word, which is always a good thing, these preachers get to develop their gift, and the body is fed in a greater variety of ways. This Sunday one of our elders preached. Great stuff from Matthew 18.
This is important to us, especially in a day when many good churches are piping in satellite feeds of preachers. If the pastor has to leave early on Sunday, just record his earliest AM message and replay it for the second or third services. Want to plant a church? No need to develop more preachers, just gather the new body around a large screen and pipe in a feed of the parent church’s service.
I still do not understand this practice – especially in large congregations. Are these churches admitting they do not have the leadership necessary to preach? Is no one called in the bodies to be preachers of the word besides one man? Are these churches really just personality cults who are about one leader rather than The Person of God? I am not trying to be overly dramatic, it just all seems anything but biblical. It doesn’t surprise me when some churches do this. Innovation for it’s own sake and all that. But I have seen other, more strongly theologically oriented churches begin to do the same.
What’s the big deal? It can lead to a personality cult which Paul clearly speaks against. It does not give those who are called to preach by God a chance to exercise that calling. The virtual preacher cannot know the needs of the satellite congregation, nor adjust his message on the spot to better connect with his audience. And there is more, but I will leave it at that.
I recently met Mark Pirrie, one of the pastors from Moody Memorial Church in downtown Chicago where Erwin Lutzer is Senior Pastor. They are modeling something better than the virtual pastor. While Lutzer is the Senior Pastor who regularly preaches, they are also rotating in all the leadership called to preach as well. Hearing this from Mark was a big encouragement. This can be done in small and large churches alike (Grace would certainly qualify as a “small” church). But getting to the place where this is a reality requires humility and risk and an investment in discipleship and leadership development beyond management technique.
For those who want to see healthy churches, able leadership, real revival, church planting movements, and better preaching in our pulpits across the country – we had better fill our pulpits with real people who are called by God and give them opportunity to be faithful to him and his church.
I am the Lead Pastor of Redeemer Fellowship; husband to Jen; Dad to Katherine, Elias, Madeline, and Kilian. If you're in town you can probably find me in the local coffee house or running through the neighborhoods.
{ 14 comments }
Amen
Joe…I agree with you on all counts. I’ve had an elder preach after finishing a series or two as well. It was nice to be able to sit and experience that.
I don’t know why some large churches show taped sermons. Fellowship Church in Dallas, instead of planting new churches does this, as does Northpoint in Atlanta. I think it does create a situation where you’re drawing people because of the preacher. I would prefer they plant new churches instead of piping that in like.
But I want to encourage you not to draw too big a line there.
And yet we may be faced with a situation like that. We’re faced with a situation without our own space, with limited spaces to rent, and with even more limited space to rent where we have exclusive use. Land is $200K-300K/acre, and there are all kinds of zoning issues, so we won’t be buying land anytime soon. If we continue growing where we are, we will add services, but at 3 services back to back to back, I just don’t know if I can preach much more than that. So what happens? We try to find more space, or our 230, if we’re at 3 services, or so people try to plant another church? Maybe, but what if there are things that prohibit us from doing that, ie space, funds, etc? It just might not be practical to do that. One thing we can do is take the church into the community and find smaller places for the church to worship and so to keep the church as part of the whole, one of the ideas we looked at is using taped preaching with churches having their own worship team. We’re looking at a lot of different ways to try to maximize the tools of technology within the context of our location.
I understand that might sound as if I’m talking out of both sides of my mouth. My dream is to see the church grow to 400-500 and then take groups fo 50-75 and plant churches. Replentish ourselves and then plant more churches.
Another issue that we have in our current scenario is that the past I succeeded didn’t raise up teachers (or leaders for that matter) and while we have people who will serve, we have people who have no desire or background to teach. But if we get to that point were we don’t have men called to lead that way, or called to teach, then we may just have to video the sermons and do something similar. I don’t like it, but if the choice is to stop growing or keep trying to reach people, I’ll fall on the side of continuing to reach people.
We have no desire to get bigger by getting bigger, but to get bigger by multiplication. And yet in our current context, that might be the only way this can happen. It’s not ideal. But as one of our leaders would way, “That’s real!”
At this point, I can’t say it would be wrong to do that because it might be something we just have to do. Not ideal, again, but it may be necessary to see the Kingdom grow.
And to be honest, if I could have another person from the church preach, or even do a series in between my series, that would be awesome. I’m trying to train people in that manner, but it takes time.
I hope that makes sense…
Joe,
We have had this discussion in the South where the DVD Preacher has some strong roots. One satellite location in the mid-Atlanta area grew from a couple of hundred to over 1,000 in two years or so.
I also have questioned the issue of shepherding; how does it take place? Who leads the flock?
You bring up valid points here; another good post, Joseph.
Marty,
I know at Fellowship Church, one of their staff members is the campus pastor, in addition to also being one of the children’s pastors. But that’s about it from what I understand. I think their small groups do most, if not all, of the pastoring.
David,
A couple of months ago I started thinking through the idea of “nano-ecclesiology,” keeping churches small intentionally through church planting. All small groups, store fronts, non-property owning, etc. It is very similar to your idea of grow to a point then plant 50-75 in a new church.
My thinking is that an area could be incarnationally evangelized much more thoroughly with this type of expansion. (Part of my thinking was influenced by Malcolm Gladwell’s “The Tipping Point,” maybe I’ll blog on the nano-ecclesiology thing soon.)
Marty,
I agree with you. One of the things I thought and even planned when I was in seminary in New Orleans 10 years ago was to plant a church, grow it, then plant another church taking people from the original church to help the plant. We would build a circle around the outside of NO, combining resources to continue to plant churches. then when the outer band was complete (similar to Perimeter Church in Atl I think), we would begin planting churches towards the middle of the circle eventually planting in the French Quarter. I truly thought it would transform New Orleans.
Hey guys…I found this article today:
Megachurches turn to satellite services. Interesting read and perfect timing with Joe’s thoughts!
David,
1) I am speaking ideally – exceptions must be granted. My problem is primarilly with large churches who have no excuse. Of course locally we have Harvest churches. They do the feed thing when pastors can’t be there (ick), but they are also multiplying like mad. So they are doing some great work on the level of multiplication.
2) I would not pit evangelism/outreach against discipleship/leadership development. It is not an either/or scenario – ever. To not make disciples is to do something other than what Christ commands.
3) We like the idea of planting another church when you’re a solid 200+. If you grow too fast to keep doing that – fine. But 200, 600, 1000 – whatever. It should simply be a part of the plan from the beginning to mulitply rather than just grow. The Bible doesn’t set a number for us to follow here, so charity to all of course.
4) Come on, you can preach 3 times a day – same sermon. I believe it would be better to have someone else preach if you couldn’t do it. Why deny the people a real live preacher?
5) Your idea for NO is beautiful.
Marty,
The primary reasons we want to remain under 600 for sure, and smaller preferably (but always starting new churches), is because of community life and pastoral care. I think both start to break down after that. Even with small groups done well.
And yeah – our Home Groups is where a lot of “pastoral care” happens within the body. It has been working for us at Grace.
Hey Joe,
There’s a conference in your ‘hood in October. http://www.multi-site.org/
Maybe you could attend and give us some insight or you could stage a protest
We are a smaller church 50-60 and are thinking about adding on to our current facility (if you could call it a “facility”) – it seats 70. But, we’re also talking a possible merger with the community church in town, which seats 150. But, they have 60-70 people, so we’d run into a seating senerio there as well. One of the things we talked about was a satelite service using both buildings.
I don’t much like the preacher on the big screen field, but if in your group of elders you have one who is gifted to teach/preach then what do you do? Personally, I believe the various guys should speak, but there should be one main teaching pastor. It brings continuity, association, etc to the deal. The dangers are there, and you laid them out well, Joe.
Joe,
I don’t mind preaching 3 services, but I tell ya, go much more than that and I’ll be toast
DP
Joe,
Thank you for your post. I agree wholeheartedly. I have been on staff at a large church in Minneapolis that wrestled with this very issue and came down on the side of video feeding. They now have two campuses and praying for a third, all video feeding the pastor. In their case, the pastor is incredibly gifted and they wrestled with how to steward his gifts for the glory of God. Although, he is used of God to bless many through his preaching gift, the thing I observed then and now is that there is a lack of training, raising up, stewardship of the many men who are gifted and called to preach. This is intimately connected to succesful multiplication and church planting.
I am now an outreach pastor at a plant from the mother church with a lead pastor who desires to preach 45 times a year. I have seen again the lack of training and stewardship of the other men in the church who are called to preach. If we are to succesfully plant churches by sending out able and qualified men how are we to recognize these men without giving them the opportunity (more than a couple of times a year) to preach and grow in that gifting.
It is sad that many church planters are relegated to growing in their preaching call in youth ministry. I pray for more churches and more lead pastors that are willing to share their pulpits.
Thank you brother! It’s a joy to read your thoughts and be sharpened.
Grace,
Jason
Joe, well said and something every church should aspire to see, multiplying leadership following the call of Paul to Timothy in 2 Timothy 2:2. If I’m going to have something on a big screen it better be football, not a rerun of yesterday’s sermon.
I wish I had been involved in a church whose pastor had your attitude while I was working through whether or not to become a pastor. Would have helped me alot. Keep it up Joe!
Comments on this entry are closed.