Video Campuses?

We have a couple down here that do it. The "satelitte" campuses are basically coffee shops that people sit around, eat donuts, drink coffee and watch a preacher on TV. Seems pretty stupid to me. The ones that do it are the more liberal variety that preach "feel good" messages.

 

I've seen this a bit. Christ Fellowship (formerly 1st Baptist of Perrine) has five campus churches around the Miami area. However, the campus pastor usually brings the message, but sometimes it is a video feed. See www.cfmiami.org. Fellowship Church (formerly 1st Baptist of South Miami) is part of a larger church with five campuses -- four in the Dallas area and one in Miami. See http://miami.fellowshipchurch.com.

 

Andy Stanley is doing this. I believe that Quantum is part of his church.

Personally, I'm against the practice... Not for any purely theological reasons, but mainly that God has plenty of good men that can lead a congregation -- more than enough to go around. And, while I absolutely advocate the use of modern technology, I do not see a video sermon as a substitute for a godly man in person.

 

Exactly. I just don't see how a pastor can fulfil his role via videotape.

 

The concept behind a video sermon is that the preaching of the sermon is the only pastoral duty. That is a false premise!

Of course, many venues that are utilizing video-linking of sermons also have campus pastors who fulfill the role of shepherding the flock at the alternative location, but why cut another man, who God may have gifted with the ability to preach, from the system.

 

There really is not need for it. And I question the motives of those who do it. What they should be doing is planting separate and autonomous churches.

 

The NYC "Tabernacle" churches (the popular I-AOG's) I have seen do it for big functions. They might have multiple rooms with monitors in the main building, and I think they have used outside locations as well. and the services are simulcast online as well.

 

We have multiple campuses that are part of our church. It has been a good ministry model for us. As we have grown we reached our capacity for on site parking and began exploring other options.

Multi-site has been a win for us and we are seeing some great things happen with our church and our people. We use a hybrid approach for the preaching. Our preaching team, led by our senior pastor, organizes the topics for the next several months and works on who is going to preach when.

In our campuses we use video feed (a DVR approach) along with live preaching. Each campus has a specific pastor and is located in growing communities within 15 minutes of our main campus site.

I'm okay with local multi-site campuses. I'm even better with the hybrid approach that multiplies the preaching team and utilizes both video and live preaching. Often our pastor will show up and preach at the satellite venues unannounced. It works well this way.

One of my reservations about multi-site are churches which do it based around one communicator and go beyond their local appeal. We specifically are working with campuses within a smaller geographic range of our church. It seems unrealistic to have the main campus in, say, Minnesota and a satellite campus in Florida. That defeats the purpose.

The model is a big catalyst for our church to continue to see growth and God's blessing. We were considering a fairly massive building program to expand both parking and seating. For a fraction of the cost we have mobilized two satellite campuses which are growing like crazy. In the process we also raised up several hundred new lay leaders who had been hanging out in the background thinking we had it all covered. We're seeing great things happening.

It seems to be harder in more rural areas because there really isn't an economic reason to not expand facilities. Being in an urban setting it has worked well. In terms of generational appeal it has primarily found resonance with younger families but each campus has a fairly diverse age segment.

There are a lot of churches doing this and planning to do this. It is wise stewardship imho. I can think of at least 20 churches doing with, all with HUGE success rates.

One option that we are carefully considering is that this model is a great way to do church revitalization. A local church, about 20 minutes away, has approached us about partnering with us and becoming a satellite campus for our church. They have an established, but aging membership, and want to be good stewards of their established building. They can't support a full time pastor but need one. This is an important opportunity for us to consider.

Also, to toss this out there, the success rate nationally for satellite campuses is about 85% to becoming a sustainable church. Whereas the failure rate for church planting is 75%, or that many churches fail within three years. These are pretty easy stats to check and back up. For what we invest in a local satellite campus we mobilize ten fold the return of new lay leadership, new members, new salvations, and new ministry opportunities.

Sorry, that's long but I hope the perspective helps.

 

Elevation Church here in Charlotte does it. Each place has their own band, but the sermon time is projected.

Other churches I know have over flow rooms. Same difference to me.

 

If each campus has a pastor, then what's the point of watching somebody on TV and calling him "pastor" even though he only bothers to show up on occasion?

Why? What's the difference between watching somebody in Minnesota on TV and watching somebody locally on TV?

John MacArthur is based out in California and Mark Dever is based about an hour and a half away from us and yet, when I listen to each of them, there's not a whole lot of difference.

But wouldn't that money, time, and effort have been better spent planting a new church, rather than just a franchise where you go on Sunday mornings to watch TV?

So what about older people who are looking for a traditional, Biblical church model?

Are you defining "success" in pragmatic terms or in faithfulness to the Biblical model?

Better to do it Biblically and fail in man's eyes, than to cater to the culture and fail in God's eyes. Why do emergents always measure church growth in numbers of attendees?

Out of curiousity, let's say that I watch this guy on TV and I have a question or a concern about something he said. How do I approach him?

 

The best teaching I get is from a Christian web site. But that doesn't mean I would ever sacrifice meeting at least twice a week with fellow believers. I'm curious as to how many of you can go to church on Sunday night? We have none left in our town, but back in the 60's and 70's Barb and I loved our Sunday night Bible studies..

 

Our church has Sunday night services, but they are not different from Sunday morning services, nor are members expected to attend twice on Sunday. The evening service is simply another time to meet, and indeed, our church was founded on a Sunday night service time. We added the others as people came in and over-filled the capacity to hold them all.

We also meet sometime during the week in home-based community groups, where the Bible education, fellowship, ministry, counseling, and neighborhood outreach is performed. Sundays "gathered" are for corporate worship.

 

Thats the personal touch (sarcasm) I'd rather stay home then & watch it on TV or PC.

 

Worst part of all this is the perversion of another English word. One building does not make a campus.

cam·pus   
[kam-puhs] Show IPA
–noun, plural -pus·es.
1.
the grounds, often including the buildings, of a college, university, or school.
2.
a college or university: The large influx of older students radically changed many campuses throughout the country.
3.
a division of a university that has its own grounds, buildings, and faculty but is administratively joined to the rest of the university.
4.
the world of higher education: Foundation grants have had a marked effect on the character of the American campus.
5.
a large, usually suburban, landscaped business or industrial site.

 

My church does it (www.pinelake.org). The main campus is in Brandon, MS, 2 hours southwest of Starkville. Our local (Starkville) campus just got started within the last 6 months and we're going to use the video feed for at least our first year. Ultimately, we will transition to a more campus-centered model of preaching.