Video Church--Again
A recent article in Slate, "The Chick-fil-A Church," highlights the growth of "video venues" among churches. They "estimate 2,000 to 2,500 U.S. congregations now operate multiple campuses." Leadership Network "says there will be 30,000 of them within a few years." LifeChurch.tv has churches in six states and Andy Stanley's North Point (Atlanta) has 16 video venues and is "gunning for a total of 60 by 2010," according to Slate. One North Point site (Buckhead) has a $250,000 HD system. Even Rick Warren's Saddleback Church, which has resisted this in the past, has three of ten planned sites now open.
The article also mentions how much easier this is than the typical church planting. "Church planting, as it is known, can be arduous and time-consuming, and there's no guarantee it will reproduce the home church's success."
The article can be found at slate.com/id/2197166/. Note some of the responses to the article, especially from the unchurched. Also see wsj.com/article/SB121331198629268975.html for an article in the Wall Street Journal for how this is helping overseas mission outreach.
What's your response? Is this exciting or frightening? Is this now the new way of leading hundreds of thousands to Christ? Are mega-churches going to become "gigachurches?"
More to the point, in light of the above, what are your thoughts on the EC goal of planting seven churches in the next five years? On target? Antiquated? Needs revision? More aggressive? Video?
Also, what if "Mr. Purpose Diven Life" dropped a video venue on your block?
posted by FWG at
10:15 AM
5 Comments:
Truthfully, I've tho't about exploring the concept of a video satellite. Unfortunately, I'll probably still be thinking about it when someone else does it. Pretty much par for the course. I'm afraid this requires more humility than I generally find in us pastors. We tend to pride ourselves on our preaching when, in truth, most of us are C preachers. I don't think there are too many of us who would give up our pulpits to be executive pastors in a satellite where another guy's mug is on the screen each week.
3:21 PM
I don't know if the willies are anything like the heebie-jeebies which I feel when I read about this concept. I am all for the church getting out of its box, but this seems to fly in the face of what we are being told about today's culture and its need to belong to something which is high-touch and personal because our society is so high-tech and impersonal. How does this meet the high-touch need of today's culture?
3:39 PM
If this is God's will for the future of the church, a way of bringing many, many more to Christ,then the rest of us in churches that are not doing the job need to put our egos in storage and get out of the way. In fact, it doesn't matter if we get out of the way, we will probably be run over.
5:14 PM
I'm pretty sure we're headed for sermons just being broadcast on the bottom of the mothership-like on the television show "V".
10:19 AM
I'm less concerned with video sermons than I am with the "either or" approach to getting the Word out or to church planting. If the Bible offers just one template for church planting, then it is the grassroots model of new life out of active love. When people come together around expressions of love, new life happens. That is the biblical model of church planting. But just as it is with human reproduction, a plethera of things get in the way of new life. And so too can we find more than one petri dish wherein to jumpstart new life.
3:17 PM
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