To build or not to build

We do operate more efficiently with multiple campuses that share the pastors/elders. If each campus had to fully staff, the cost would make them rather ineffective, and also work to hold pastors to poverty-level workers, as is the case in a good many churches out there. Each campus is autonomous from the main campus in certain ways, but also connected in certain ways. Campus business is handled by the campus pastor, as is other areas of pastoral ministry. Business, on the other hand, is handled centrally (taking care of the facilities, etc.). Offices at the central campus do all the printing, etc., which saves a ton on costs.

Each campus celebrates the Lord's Supper in each service, every week. We have decided that holding the Lord's Supper just once a month, once a quarter, etc., does not fulfill the biblical mandate to "remember" and so we have structured our services to include this aspect of worship. The offering is taken during the Lord's Supper time as well. We do not pass things around the congregation, but rather, we set up stations where the Supper is served. Typically a husband and wife team, who are church members in good standing, will hold the elements as the church members come forward to receive them. They tear off a piece of bread and dip that in either wine or juice, as their conscience allows, and the Scriptural words of the Supper are spoken over each person as they take the bread and the cup. Offering baskets are held by deacons (or other trustworthy members) and one drops in the offering as they pass by the baskets, which are then taken to the church safe and secured.

With as many as 6 or 8 stations for the Supper, we can typically handle a congregation of 500+ in the length of time it takes to do one worship hymn. It is always interesting to see how various members take or deal with the time of the Lord's Supper and offering. Some approach as if it is just another ritual that they need to observe, going through the motions, while others are in tears as they take the elements and return to get on their face before Holy God. Some don't really care if the words of the Scripture are proclaimed over them, while others wait eagerly as the Scriptures are spoken. As every member is in some different place in their "journey" into the kingdom, that is to be expected, and we actually see more of our people's reactions to the taking of the Table than if everyone is robotic, taking the little cracker and juice on cue in their pews as is common in so many churches.

Amen... Dealing with a quickly growing congregation creates plenty of headaches -- GOOD headaches -- but headaches nonetheless. We can barely establish pastors/elders fast enough to have the staff needed to oversee our members. Discipling, mentoring, and commissioning community group leaders is a huge task. Seldom does a week go by when a group does not hive off into another group in a new location. We are scrambling to find new locations where we can meet, and we find a lot of resistance in the community. Perhaps not as much as some I've seen (I've actually seen lawsuits brought against new church starts, and/or churches that are trying to grow, just for being larger than the community things is "proper" whatever that means), but enough.

We are seeing a LOT of God's grace in our growth! Also, our mission, though not excluding wealthy suburban areas. does not specifically target those places. That seems to be where all the other churches look to build their malls and such. Our specific target is run-down areas that are being passed over as "burned over districts" or wastelands of gang violence, etc. There, we find an abundance of usable buildings that can be converted for church use, even though those buildings may be in shambles (as is the neighborhood) when we move in. We then encourage our people to move to that neighborhood, and establish a gospel presence, start community groups, and start the process of expansion. It is cool to know that God has redeemed former homeless addicted persons to be pastors and evangelists! Indeed, some of our current pastoral staff were wasted homeless persons in the neighborhoods where our churches started.

We can best provide the needed support, both pastoral and financial, in those sort of areas through a multi-campus model.

Note that we do not advocate the use of video preaching. Each site has a preaching pastor assigned for the worship services. It may not be the same person week after week (seldom is!) which we have found very helpful in the long term, as the church does not become one who just follows a "personality." Our members learn that many have gifts and that all are expected to utilize those gifts for the sake of the kingdom, and that we serve and follow Christ, not any particular man. We are constantly sending out people that other churches might wish to hold because they are "so valuable" to the congregation. That's okay, because we are raising up new leaders very intentionally, and God is gifting us in spectacular ways. The more we send, the more He gives!

Hopefully, I have answered your questions. If not, or if you would like further discussion, let me know. More, if you would like to arrange a visit, I'd love to help facilitate that. :thumbs:

 

glfredrick and annsi, I am fascinated by what you have been relating. I have spent most of my life in a southern Southern Baptist culture, and much of what you've been telling is new to me.

I'm pretty traditional in my thinking, so you've given me a lot to digest.

 

Tom,

In a sense, there is a movement afoot in the SBC to missionalize in North America and elsewhere. For far too long, we've talked only about "extending the church" as if something that does not exist can be extended. That may be fine for churches in the Bible belt, the heart of the SBC, but the practice fails once taken outside that arena as many a church planter has discovered.

In another sense, there has been an error of "codification" where some (any) move of God has been codified into a technique or law that we ever after have to repeat because it worked once. God has all sorts of ways that He can and does move, none in opposition to His Word, but many that are not "traditional" in the common use of that term.

A third error has been to take readings from Scripture, such as the early church in the first couple of chapters of Acts and make those readings "prescriptive" instead of what they actually are, "descriptive." We then set out to build house churches instead of congregations, talk about socialistic church instead of community-based church, etc.

What is needed is a fresh view, and that is what some of us are doing, while holding to the truth once and always given to the saints.