Here’s a part of my real take on this. I think in the abstract, the idea of structuring well a multi-site church is not a bad one.

Whether or not fallen yet redeemed people can pull off the ideal is a whole different matter.

I know that we have trouble working together in a single city among multiple churches, and I don’t think turning it into one church with one pastor would solve it. I think it might work in other cultural settings, but Americans are culturally rebellious and independent, and that bleeds hard into churches. It’s a part of who we are, for both the good and ill of it. So, I think from a Biblical standpoint and even from a practical standpoint, there are times and places multi-site would be great, but I don’t personally know anyone involved in one that really works.

Doug
.-= Doug Hibbard´s last blog ..Daily Journal October 8 =-.

I would fall on the side of multi-site options not being a good option. The reason I would give wasn’t specifically mentioned, but may fall under the category of Michael’s Item #4. Namely, discipleship of church memebers should involve building them up in ministry.

I attend a larger single-site church and have this observation from my perspective. Where a larger organization has more diverse talent and manpower available, there are naturally more different kinds of ministry opportunitites. However, ministry niches tend to be filled by only a few overachieving people. I can’t imagine how a multi-site would involve more people in ministry, particularly from the sateelite locations. Rather it seems that ministry in word and worship would happen unidirectionally and members of the congregation, especially at sattelite locations, would be marginalized into being recievers of ministry only.

I may be wrong about this, but I’ve seen some frustration against ministerial growth myself even in my single-site church that vies to involve people in ministry. I personally have more opportunities to minister elswhere besides with my own church.
.-= Jim Pemberton´s last blog ..Schrödinger’s Other Cat =-.

Kind of an underdeveloped idea about one central location to worship, even though all the people could not be there. It seems that the Jews didn’t seem to count synagogue activity as worship at the time, but they only counted worship as coming from the Temple. And then, you have the priests being based from there…

So, perhaps you have a model of a multi-site worship structure: one centralized ‘headquarters’ with a variety of local teaching and ministry centers, but all of them look to one central location for worship, one primary leader in the high priest.

It’s kind of shaky, and perhaps the best argument against multi-site churches is the developing similarity to that structure.

But, hey, I needed something.
Doug
.-= Doug Hibbard´s last blog ..Tuesday Theology =-.

As I try to finish up my response, I’m struggling to understand how the model for Israelite worship bears on your argument. Could you help me out with that?

MJD
.-= Michael DeBusk´s last blog ..why church membership matters =-.

I don’t see it as prescriptive either. Which is why I didn’t say it in the actual debate. I think I see multi-site as a viable option, but not always the best. Besides, how would one determine where, in modern America, to draw the attendance line? Does Alpharetta get its own major church or do you have to go on to Atlanta? The practicalities alone are staggering.

However, whether American religion is based on voluntary association or not doesn’t seem relevant. If it were truly the Biblical model, it wouldn’t matter. American religion also tends to be self-centered and demanding, but that’s not Biblical, so churches ought to be pushing back against it, not giving in to it. If the Biblical text mandated one form over another, it wouldn’t be for us to find loopholes but for us to obey it.

I’d suggest that one benefit of a multi-site church, even if the various sites had under-shepherds or sub-pastors of their own, would be transparency of influence. Rather than wondering which particular mega-church pastor your pastor was striving to emulate, it would be obvious.

All in all, it’s a potential solution to potential problems that might potentially work in some potential situations. That to say, I wouldn’t give up my pulpit in my small church to beam in somebody else on a regular basis. Theoretically, I don’t see the difficulties of a multi-site church any greater than the problems we have now or the issues of doing a true separate church plant.

Theoretically, I should eat more green stuff too.

Mark,

You’ve probably hit the point. It’s a good question about how the pastoral/elder role is defined from the Biblical standpoint and how many people can a pastor pastor. Then we get into the whole “how big is it before it’s too big” issue.

I think it’s probably one of those issues that isn’t too big for most of us, since we don’t deal with it. After all, nobody’s lining up to video broadcast most of the Baptist preachers out there.

I do know of a church that lost their pastor and are seriously considering going to video/podcast of someone elsewhere because they can’t fund a pastoral salary. I’m fairly certain that’s not a good thing, because there will not be anyone local (we’re talking video/podcast from out of state) involved.

Doug
.-= Doug Hibbard´s last blog ..Monday Morning Politics–September 28 =-.

The issue seems to lie at what exactly are the pastor(s)/elder(s) biblical responsibilities as well as accountability before God for their flock. Can these responsibilities be carried out faithfully in multi-site churches? Or even huge churches where members have limited access to their pastor(s)?
.-= Mark Lamprecht´s last blog ..Gospel Then Morality: Lesson From Abortion Counseling =-.

Well, I’m not sure about the idea of one city=one church assumption regarding the churches of the New Testament. Even if a strong case could be made (which I don’t think it can) that 1) they existed that way without exception, and 2) that such a model would be prescriptive, I don’t think it could accomplish what you hope it would accomplish.

American religion is characterized by voluntary associations and, short of government intervention, that isn’t going to go away. Besides that, I don’t really think that you want them to either. Any effort to impose the idea that if you live in Alpharetta, Georgia, you should for the sake of Christian unity attend Crabapple would lead to greater sectarianism–not less.
.-= Michael DeBusk´s last blog ..why church membership matters =-.