Why multi-site is “good”
“Good” is in quotation marks because I have fundamental problems with multi-site related to the nature of preaching, the necessity of the sacraments, and the need for the local church to be governed by the leadership of that particular local church. One thing that multi-site may be good for, though, is getting people to think through 1) What is the church? and 2) Do we really take what we see in the Scripture as authoritative? These are important questions that were alluded to by this article on Leadership Network’s blog. As multi-site continues to grow because it’s “successful”, will people really take a look at it to see what should stay and what to be jettisoned?
In the article, Dave Ferguson of Community Christian Church is asked what’s on the horizon for multi-site in America. Here are his responses:
- More new sites will be launched by sites other than the original site. In other words we will see new sites reproducing new sites.
- Sites will be launched not based on the competency of the mother church, but on the strengths and needs of the community where the new site is started.
- There will be less of the “We use video” vs. “We develop teachers” battle and more multi-site churches will use both video and in-person teaching.
- A lot more campus pastors will be female and there will be evidence that they are more effective than men in this role which will bring some controversy.
- Multi-site churches will think in terms of launching a region with multiple sites and not one new site at a time.
- Online churches ill not just have one site, but they will also have multiple sites!
- The churches that are effective in reproducing new sites will be the churches that are most effective in reproducing missional communities.
Number 4 is especially interesting. I had never thought of it before, but because the campus pastor position typically doesn’t preach a lot and is more focused on congregational care, will churches open that role to women because they are more “nurturing” despite the clarity in Scripture that the role of elder/overseer be male-only (1 Timothy 3:2)? We shall see. I’m especially excited that our next Re:Train class is Missional Ecclesiology and we’ll be talking through some of this stuff.
If you want to read more on multi-site, check out this 9Marks eJournal.
September 21st, 2009 at 3:43 pm
Just because technology allows us to do multi-site I don’t think it’s wise.
It’s simply not there historically, it just is not. Imagine if Calvin or Edwards had done multi-site, how many churches would have collapsed when they died because of the emphasis on the head honcho.
No, we must be servants to Jesus, to the Word, and to our people.
We must teach them to be servants so that they can be useful in planting other churches and doing likewise. Not going out and creating clones of a certain “kind” of church, but creating many small churches with humble servant leaders.
And, I’m not saying that there aren’t many humble servant leaders in Mars Hill or other churches that do multi-site. Like I said, I just don’t think it’s conducive to what Jesus commanded us to do.
As “successful” the multi-site appears to be with Mars Hill and others, I don’t think I can cross that line and ignore all of church history (specifically two periods, the first 4 centuries of Christianity and the reformation era) where if multi-site was used it would’ve been disastrous long-term.
And who knows? We don’t yet know whether Mars Hill will continue past Mark Driscoll, I certainly hope and pray it does, but how many will leave because he’s not preaching anymore?